Monorepo initiates deployment even if skip built is enabled

Help
1

Setting up a mono-repo with npm package workspaces and skip-built in each project (sub-folder) still initiates a deployment but skips it, but it still counts towards the 100 deployments per day.

when making commit to one project it cancels the built on the others, but it still initiates the deployment and counting towards the 100 deployment limit.

root package.json
{
	"name": "my-monorepo",
	"version": "1.0.0",
	"private": true,
	"workspaces": [
		"app",
		"services",
		"website"
	]
}
4

This is expected behavior with monorepos on Vercel. Even if a build is skipped, it still counts toward your deployment limit because Vercel has to spin up the process long enough to decide whether the build should be skipped in the first place.

One way to reduce unnecessary deployments is to use a custom ignored build step in your vercel.json, for example:
{ "ignoreCommand": "npx turbo-ignore" }
This gives you more control than relying on the default skip logic, and you can even write your own script if you want to check changes only in certain workspaces.

If you’re using Turborepo, turbo-ignore is built exactly for this scenario and can help cut down on needless deploys. Another option is git-based path filtering, where you tell Vercel which directories should and shouldn’t trigger deployments. For example:

{
  "git": {
    "deploymentEnabled": {
      "app/**": true,
      "services/**": false,
      "website/**": false
    }
  }
}

That said, there’s no way on the Hobby plan to prevent skipped deploys from counting entirely. If you’re regularly hitting the 100-deployment cap, upgrading to Pro (6,000 deployments/month) might be the practical long-term fix.

Resources if you need them:

5

Hi @sordahl, just checking in to see if you still need help with the deployment issue in your monorepo or if you’ve found a solution. Let us know if you have any questions or need further assistance!