Selective Deployment

Deploy a subset of your sitemd pages instead of the full site. Use this when sitemd manages part of your domain — like /blog and /docs — while another system handles the rest.

When to use it

You have an existing site at example.com built with another tool. You want sitemd to power specific sections:

• A blog at /blog
• Documentation at /docs
• A handful of standalone pages like /changelog

Without selective deployment, sitemd builds every page in your project and deploys the entire output. With deployPages, only the pages you specify make it to the output — everything else is excluded from the build, sitemap, search index, and deploy.

Configure deployPages

Add a deployPages list to settings/deploy.md. Each entry is a group name or a URL path:

# settings/deploy.md
---
domain: example.com
target: cloudflare

deployPages:
  - blog
  - docs
---

This builds only pages that belong to the blog or docs groups. All other pages are excluded.

Matching rules

Group names and path prefixes can be mixed freely:

deployPages:
  - docs
  - blog
  - /changelog
  - /pricing

What gets included

When deployPages is set:

• Matching pages — built and written to the output directory
• Theme assets — always included (/theme/styles.css, fonts, scripts)
• Media files — always included (/media/ directory)
• Sitemap, search index, llms.txt — only contain the deployed pages
• Navigation — renders as configured in settings/header.md (you control what links appear)

When deployPages is not set or empty, all pages deploy as normal.

Set up your hosting

After sitemd builds the filtered output, you deploy it to your hosting platform. Your hosting provider routes specific paths to sitemd's deployment while serving the rest from your primary site.

Cloudflare Pages

Deploy sitemd to a Pages project, then use a route rule on your main domain to proxy specific paths:

1. Deploy your sitemd output to a Cloudflare Pages project (e.g., my-docs.pages.dev)
2. In your main domain's Cloudflare settings, add a Page Rule or Transform Rule that proxies /docs/* and /blog/* to the Pages project

Netlify

Use Netlify's _redirects file on your primary site to proxy paths to your sitemd deployment:

/blog/*  https://my-sitemd-blog.netlify.app/blog/:splat  200
/docs/*  https://my-sitemd-docs.netlify.app/docs/:splat  200

The 200 status makes this a rewrite (proxy), not a redirect — visitors stay on your domain.

Vercel

Add path rewrites to your primary site's vercel.json:

{
  "rewrites": [
    { "source": "/blog/:path*", "destination": "https://my-sitemd.vercel.app/blog/:path*" },
    { "source": "/docs/:path*", "destination": "https://my-sitemd.vercel.app/docs/:path*" }
  ]
}

GitHub Pages

GitHub Pages doesn't support path-level proxying. To use selective deployment with GitHub Pages, deploy sitemd to a project repository and access it at username.github.io/repo-name.

Common patterns

Blog only

One group, one section of your site:

deployPages:
  - blog

Pages in pages/blog/ with groupMember: [blog] are deployed. Set up your navigation to link within the blog and to external URLs for the rest of your site.

Blog and docs from one project

Two groups, two sections:

deployPages:
  - blog
  - docs

Both groups deploy. Each section gets its own sidebar and navigation. Theme assets are shared.

Groups plus standalone pages

Mix groups with individual paths for pages that don't belong to a group:

deployPages:
  - docs
  - /changelog
  - /roadmap

Auth pages

If your deployed sections use gated content, include the auth pages in your deploy scope. Auth pages live in auth-pages/ and typically aren't in any group, so add them by path:

deployPages:
  - docs
  - /login
  - /register
  - /access-denied

Settings reference

Each list entry is either:

• A group name (no leading /) — matches pages with that group in groupMember
• A URL path (starts with /) — matches the exact slug or any slug under that prefix

See Deploy for the full deployment configuration and Groups for how page groups work.