Web Publishing (Cloud)

Draftbit makes it easy to deploy your web app to a test draftbit.dev or custom domain with a single click! When deploying your web app through Draftbit, it is hosted using Cloudlare’s serverless Workers which includes a high-performance global availability network, automatic load balancing, autoscaling, and more. An SSL certificate is automatically generated for your domain to ensure secure communication between your users and your web app.

Publish Your Web App

During development, you can publish your web app to a test draftbit.dev domain for free with zero configuration required to share with others for testing and feedback.

When you’re ready to publish your web app to the world, you can set up a custom domain and publish updates with one click!

To publish your app to the web, use the following steps:

1. Open the Publish dropdown

   Click the button from the top-right of the Builder to open the Publish dropdown.

2. Choose Progressive Web App

   Click the button for the Progressive Web App option.

3. Start a new publish

   Enter a version name, number, and environment for your publish and then click the to start the publishing process.

Name	Description
Version Name	A name for this version of your web app (e.g., “Initial Release”, “Major Update”, “v3”).
Version Number	The version number assigned to this publish (e.g., “1”, “2.0”, “3.1”).
Environment	The environment to publish your web app to. Options: Staging or Production.

Grab a coffee

You can leave and come back to check on the progress of your publish at any time. The publish will continue in the background and you’ll be notified when it’s complete. Visit the Publishing page in the Builder to view the status of your ongoing and completed publishes.

Preview URL

By default, your app will be published to a test domain and the preview URL will become available once the publish is complete. The URL looks something like this:

https://<random-characters>.draftbit.dev

You can share this link with others to preview your app on the web as a Progressive Web App.

If you’ve configured a custom domain, the preview URL will be the same as the custom domain you configured.

Set up a Custom Domain

When you’re ready to publish your web app to the world, you can connect your custom domain and publish updates with one click!

Prerequisites

Custom domain

You’ll need to have a registered domain name to publish your web app to. You can use a top-level domain name like myapp.com, myapp.org, myapp.io, etc. or a subdomain like pwa.myapp.com. Domain names can be purchased from a domain name registrar like Namecheap, Google Domains, or Cloudflare.

Access to DNS records

DNS records are used to tell your domain name where to find your web app. You’ll need the ability to add DNS records to your domain in order to connect your custom domain - specifically, CNAME/ALIAS and TXT records. This is typically done through your domain registrar’s control panel. Refer to your domain registrar’s documentation for instructions on how to add DNS records.

Connecting

To get started publishing your web app to a custom domain, head over to the Publishing page in the Builder, switch to the Configuration tab, and click the Custom Domain option.

Environment and Domain

In this first step, you’ll need to configure the environment and domain you want to publish your web app to.

Name	Description
Environment	The environment to publish your web app to. Available options are Staging and Production.
Domain	The domain to publish your web app to. This should be a domain you own and have access to.

Once you’ve configured the environment and domain, click the Save button to continue.

DNS Records

In this step, you’ll need to add the DNS records to your domain. This is typically done through your domain registrar’s control panel. Refer to your domain registrar’s documentation for instructions on how to add DNS records.

You’ll create two DNS records (CNAME/ALIAS and TXT) and each DNS record will have a name and value that must exactly match the unique values provided in the publishing configuration UI.

Name	Description
CNAME/ALIAS Record	The CNAME or ALIAS record to add to your domain. This entry is required for your domain to point to Draftbit’s proxy server. Use a CNAME entry for subdomains, or an ALIAS entry for the root/APEX domain.
TXT Record	The TXT record to add to your domain. This is used to verify that you own the domain and allows Draftbit to generate the SSL certificate for your domain.

Give it time

While it usually only takes a few minutes, in some cases it may take up to 24 hours for the DNS records to propagate through the internet before verification can be completed. If you’re having trouble with your domain verification after 24 hours, please contact support.

Domain Verification

Once you’ve added the DNS records, you’ll need to verify that you own the domain. This is done by clicking the button.

When the verification is complete and successful, you’ll see and badges and the domain will be added to the publishing configuration.

Ready for takeoff

Once you’ve verified your domain, when you publish your web app, it will be published to the custom domain you configured.

If for some reason the verification fails, you’ll see an error message and there will be a link to the failure logs. You’ll need to verify the DNS records and try again. If the issue persists, please contact support.

Disconnecting

If you want to disconnect your custom domain, you can do so by clicking the button from the custom domain configuration modal.