First deployment is forced to Production even for a Preview branch and --target=preview

Hello,

I am using the Vercel Hobby plan for a personal Vite application. I need the first deployment of a new project to be strictly a Preview deployment. I must not create a Production deployment or Production alias yet.

Configuration:

GitHub repository is connected.
Production Branch is configured as main.
The deployment branch is codex/cloud-migration.
Preview is configured for all unassigned Git branches.
All six application environment variables target Preview only.
There are no Production environment variables.
Vercel CLI version: 56.4.1.

Unexpected behavior:

vercel deploy without --prod created a Production deployment.
vercel deploy --target=preview also created a Production deployment.
Pushing a new commit to the non-production Git branch codex/cloud-migration also created a Production deployment.

The CLI and dashboard both labeled these deployments as Production and assigned the project’s Production domain. I immediately deleted every unexpected deployment. The project currently has zero deployments.

The project API metadata reports:

Git provider: GitHub
Production Branch: main
Preview environment variables: 6
Latest deployments: 0

How can I create the very first deployment strictly as Preview on the Hobby plan, without creating a temporary, baseline, or placeholder Production deployment?

Thank you.

Leaderboard Winner

Hi incheol,

Based on the behavior Vercel documents, this should be a Preview deployment: a CLI deploy without --prod, vercel deploy --target=preview, and a Git push to a branch that is not the Production Branch should not normally assign the Production target.

I’d first rule out a linked-project or scope mismatch, since that can make the CLI deploy to a different project than the one whose settings you’re checking:

git branch --show-current
vercel whoami
vercel project inspect
cat .vercel/project.json

Don’t post the raw .vercel/project.json publicly, since it contains project/org IDs. Just confirm it matches the exact project in the dashboard.

Then I’d run one preview attempt with debug output and inspect the resulting deployment before deleting it:

vercel deploy --target=preview --debug --logs
vercel inspect <deployment-url>

If vercel inspect shows target: production even though the command was explicitly --target=preview, that is strong evidence of a project-side/environment classification issue rather than a Vite or branch issue.

For the Git path, I’d also check Project Settings → Environments → Production → Branch Tracking and confirm it is exactly main, with no custom environment/branch rule matching codex/cloud-migration.

Since you cannot risk a production alias, I would not attach any custom domain or production-only secret until this is understood. Use a disposable test project with no real domains/secrets to capture the repro, then include the debug output, deployment URL, branch name, and vercel inspect target with any project/team IDs removed.

Hi Ryu,

Thanks. I ran the linked-project checks and then reproduced the issue in a completely disposable project.

Read-only checks on the real project:

vercel whoami: confirmed, but redacted here
Expected scope: my personal scope
vercel project inspect dividend-ledger found the expected project in the expected scope
The inspected project ID matched the ID in the local .vercel/project.json
I am not posting the raw project or organization IDs

This ruled out the obvious linked-project and scope mismatch.

I then created a disposable static project named quiet-ledger-preview-repro-20260722 with:

No Git repository
No custom domain
Zero application environment variables
No Supabase configuration
No application or user data
Only a static index.html

Environment:

Windows
Vercel CLI 56.5.0
Node.js 24.15.0

I ran:

vercel deploy --target=preview --debug --logs --yes --scope [redacted-personal-scope]

The deployment succeeded. Before deleting it, I ran:

vercel inspect https://quiet-ledger-preview-repro-20260722-grb970rrf.vercel.app --scope [redacted-personal-scope]

The sanitized inspect result was:

name    quiet-ledger-preview-repro-20260722
target  production
status  Ready

Vercel also assigned the default Production aliases, including:

quiet-ledger-preview-repro-20260722.vercel.app

I immediately deleted the disposable deployment and project. A final vercel project inspect now reports that the project does not exist.

This reproduces the same behavior without Vite, Git branch tracking, environment variables, custom domains, Supabase, or real application data.

I did not retry the real dividend-ledger project, and it still has zero deployments.

Could a Vercel staff member confirm whether the explicit Preview target is being ignored on the first deployment or project-creation path for this account or scope?

I can reproduce it once more and provide additional redacted debug details if staff needs a specific field, but I do not want to create another unexpected Production deployment without guidance.