Deploy & DNS Prompt Cheatsheet

Quick-reference prompts for the two things you'll reach for constantly once a project is scaffolded: creating its deploy.sh script, and pointing a domain at its container. For the full walkthrough and the reasoning behind each one, see How to Build and Deploy Any Website to a Hostinger VPS Server, Parts C5, D3a, D3b, and D5.

Create your deploy.sh script

Paste this into a Claude Code session inside your project folder, filled in with your own VPS details:

"Create a deploy.sh script for this project. It should: commit-check first (refuse to run if there are uncommitted changes), then push the current branch to GitHub, then SSH into my VPS and pull the latest code and rebuild the Docker container with docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml up -d --build, then confirm the container comes back up healthy.

My VPS details:

• SSH host: YOUR_VPS_IP
• SSH user: root
• SSH key: ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_myvps
• Project folder on the VPS: /docker/your-project-name
• Container name: your-project-name-web-1
• Branch to deploy: main

Make it executable, and add a .gitattributes entry so it always keeps Linux-style line endings even though I'm editing it on Windows."

Test it on a harmless change first — edit a comment, commit, run ./deploy.sh, confirm the live site actually updated — before trusting it for a real change.

Route a new site to your free Hostinger subdomain

No real domain yet? Use this to get a new project live at your-project-name.srv123456.hstgr.cloud immediately:

"My Hostinger VPS came with a default domain, srv123456.hstgr.cloud. I just created a new site called your-project-name — route your-project-name.srv123456.hstgr.cloud to its container using the same Traefik setup as my other projects, so I can see it live right away. Keep yourdomain.com in there too for when I point a real domain at it later."

Point a real (or free Hostinger) domain at your VPS

"I have a domain, yourdomain.com, that I'd like to point at my VPS so it resolves to the container for your-project-name."

Heads up: this makes the site live instantly the moment DNS propagates — even if it's still just the default scaffolded starter page. There's no "are you sure it's ready" step in between.

Ship a "Coming Soon" page first

Because going live is instant, ask for this before anything else is built:

"Before we build out the real site, replace the homepage with a simple 'Coming soon' page — just a heading and a short line saying the site is under construction, nothing else. We'll build the real pages after confirming this is live."