npx hosting — deploy any folder to a live URL in one command, no account

Andrius Putna — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 15:31:54 +0000

I built a zero-config CLI that deploys the current folder to a live site. Anonymous by default, with a single-use claim link if you want to keep it.

Every static hosting tool I've used asks for the same ritual before you can see your site online: create an account, verify an email, install a CLI, log in, answer a config wizard. That's a lot of ceremony for "put these files on a URL".

So I built hosting — a CLI where the entire flow is:

npx hosting

That's it. No account, no config, no login. Your folder is live:

Uploading 3 files (12.4 KB)...

  Live site:   https://1freehosting.com/s/happy-panda-482
  Claim link:  https://1freehosting.com/claim/xxxxxxxx-...

The claim-link model

The interesting part isn't the upload — it's the ownership model.

Deploys are anonymous by default. You get two links back:

Live site — the public URL, share it with anyone.
Claim link — private and single-use. Open it, sign in, and the site attaches to your account so you can manage it from a dashboard.

Unclaimed sites expire 24 hours after the last deploy. That keeps throwaway experiments truly throwaway — no zombie sites, no cleanup — while anything you actually care about is one click from permanent.

This inverts the usual order: instead of authenticate, then deploy, you deploy, then decide if it was worth authenticating for.

Updating the same site

The first deploy writes a .hosting.json file with the site's deploy token. Every later hosting run from that folder updates the same site — before and after you claim it.

vim index.html
hosting        # same URL, new content

Some details I sweated:

.hosting.json is added to your .gitignore automatically (it contains the token).
Hidden files (.env, .git, …) are skipped client-side, so secrets never leave your machine. node_modules and OS junk are skipped too.
Want a fresh URL? hosting --new.
Deploying from CI or another machine? Grab the token from the dashboard and run hosting link <subdomain> --token <token> (or set HOSTING_DEPLOY_TOKEN).

Commands

Command	What it does
`hosting`	Deploy the current folder (updates the linked site, or creates one)
`hosting deploy [dir]`	Deploy a specific folder
`hosting link <subdomain>`	Link the folder to an existing site
`hosting claim`	Open the last deploy's claim link in your browser
`hosting open`	Open the last deploy's live site

Fit for AI coding agents

It's also a nice fit for AI coding agents: an agent that just generated a landing page can run one non-interactive command and hand you a live URL — no browser login dance mid-session.

Try it

cd your-static-site
npx hosting

The CLI is MIT-licensed and open source — it's the companion to 1freehosting.com, where claimed sites live.

I'd love feedback on the claim-link flow — does "anonymous first, claim later" feel right to you, or would you rather log in up front? 👇