feat(deploy): ship every site through the deployments API, and publish it

[netanelgilad]

Note

Description

base44 deploy now ships a project's site through the deployments API — the same lane base44 site deploy uses — instead of the legacy tar.gz archive upload, so a full-stack build's worker is no longer silently dropped by the unified deploy. Because deploying and publishing are separate acts server-side, deploy follows its deployment with POST deployments/{git_hash}/publish (what the archive upload did implicitly), while site deploy deliberately does not — the platform's own build step calls it against builder-managed apps, which are published from the builder. The BASE44_DEPLOYMENTS_API env gate is removed: every site deploy takes the lane, and --git-hash / --concurrency are always available.

Related Issue

None

Type of Change

• Bug fix (non-breaking change which fixes an issue)
• New feature (non-breaking change which adds functionality)
• Breaking change (fix or feature that would cause existing functionality to not work as expected)
• Documentation update
• Refactoring (no functional changes)
• Other (please describe):

Changes Made

• publishDeployment() (core/site/api.ts, plus PublishDeploymentResponseSchema in schema.ts): a second call, POST deployments/{git_hash}/publish, addressed by the full commit hash rather than the derived deployment id.
• base44 deploy ships the site through the deployments lane (core/project/deploy.ts): deployProjectSite() resolves the commit, runs deployToDeployments(), then publishes. New --git-hash <hash> (validated as 7–64 hex chars, defaults to the checkout's HEAD) and --no-publish flags; no --concurrency, since the caller uploading at scale is site deploy. Asset and warning progress is surfaced through a new onSiteProgress callback.
• Archive upload kept only where a build has no commit: a project with a site.outputDirectory and no git history warns and falls back to deploySite(), which publishes as it always did. A worker build has no archive form, so a missing commit stays fatal there. The only other caller left is base44 create's scaffold deploy.
• Builder-managed apps no longer fail the deploy: a publish rejected with extra_data.code === "app_publishes_from_builder" is reported as "production was left where it was" and the command still succeeds — its resources and its build did deploy. Any other publish error still fails.
• hasResourcesToDeploy() is now async and counts a detected full-stack artifact as a site, so a worker build with no site.outputDirectory is no longer reported as "No resources found to deploy".
• Env gate removed: deploymentsApiEnabled() deleted from core/site/deployment.ts; site deploy always takes the lane, always registers --git-hash / --concurrency, and gains an opt-in --publish that prints the app URL. Its --json document now carries published.
• Dead legacy path dropped from cli/commands/site/deploy.ts (deployTarball), and the output directory is resolved before the git hash so a defaulted site block is reported before anything else can fail.
• Tests: new coverage on deploy for publish-by-default, --no-publish, the builder-managed case, a hard publish failure, and the no-commit archive fallback; site deploy tests for not publishing and for --publish; all BASE44_DEPLOYMENTS_API setup removed from the deployment specs. Testkit gains mockDeploymentPublish(), mockDeploymentPublishError(), a publishedCommits recorder, and mockSiteDeployError() renamed to mockDeploymentCreateError().
• Docs: docs/deployments.md rewritten around "deploying and publishing are separate acts", the per-command publish rules, and what is left of the archive upload; two CHANGELOG entries added.

Testing

• I have tested these changes locally
• I have added/updated tests as needed
• All tests pass (npm test)

Checklist

• My code follows the project's style guidelines
• I have performed a self-review of my own code
• I have commented my code, particularly in hard-to-understand areas
• I have made corresponding changes to the documentation (if applicable)
• My changes generate no new warnings
• I have updated docs/ (AGENTS.md) if I made architectural changes

Additional Notes

Worth calling out for automated callers: BASE44_DEPLOYMENTS_API now does nothing (setting it is harmless), and base44 deploy in a git checkout no longer uses deploy-dist — it creates a deployment and publishes it. The platform build sandbox's base44 site deploy -y --json --git-hash <commit> invocation is unchanged and still does not publish.

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_{🤖 Generated by Claude | 2026-10-11 12:24 UTC | d9f6a73}

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[netanelgilad]

Parking this as a draft.

• The base44 dev front door is split out to feat(dev): front the app's dev server with the SDK header contract #659. This PR now has only the deploy routing (deployments API as the default lane, env gate removed, deploy publishes).
• Full-stack deploys look set to go through Yury's base44-dev/apper#29340 (build/deploy pipeline) plus the CLI's base44 publish (versions API, behind BASE44_VERSIONS_API).
• Once #29340 lands, this PR will probably shrink to having base44 deploy use publish for worker builds.

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