Clerk Deploy Integration

Overview

Deploy Clerk-authenticated applications to Vercel, Netlify, Railway, and other hosting platforms. Covers environment variable configuration, domain setup, and webhook endpoint configuration.

Prerequisites

• Clerk production instance with pk_live_ / sk_live_ keys
• Production domain configured
• Hosting platform account

Instructions

Step 1: Vercel Deployment

# Add Clerk env vars to Vercel
vercel env add NEXT_PUBLIC_CLERK_PUBLISHABLE_KEY production
# Paste: pk_live_...
vercel env add CLERK_SECRET_KEY production
# Paste: sk_live_...
vercel env add CLERK_WEBHOOK_SECRET production
# Paste: whsec_...

# Add for preview deployments too
vercel env add NEXT_PUBLIC_CLERK_PUBLISHABLE_KEY preview
vercel env add CLERK_SECRET_KEY preview

Configure Clerk Dashboard for Vercel:

1. Go to Dashboard > Domains and add your production domain
2. Set Home URL: https://myapp.com
3. Set Sign-in URL: https://myapp.com/sign-in
4. Set Sign-up URL: https://myapp.com/sign-up
5. Set After sign-in URL: https://myapp.com/dashboard

Step 2: Netlify Deployment

# Add env vars via Netlify CLI
netlify env:set NEXT_PUBLIC_CLERK_PUBLISHABLE_KEY pk_live_...
netlify env:set CLERK_SECRET_KEY sk_live_...

For Netlify Functions (serverless API routes):

// netlify/functions/clerk-auth.ts
import { createClerkClient } from '@clerk/backend'

const clerk = createClerkClient({ secretKey: process.env.CLERK_SECRET_KEY! })

export async function handler(event: any) {
  const token = event.headers.authorization?.replace('Bearer ', '')
  if (!token) {
    return { statusCode: 401, body: JSON.stringify({ error: 'No token' }) }
  }

  try {
    const session = await clerk.sessions.verifySession(token, token)
    return {
      statusCode: 200,
      body: JSON.stringify({ userId: session.userId }),
    }
  } catch {
    return { statusCode: 401, body: JSON.stringify({ error: 'Invalid token' }) }
  }
}