Static Site Deployer releases

This WordPress plugin renders your site to static files — with a built-in browser crawler or an existing Simply Static export — and deploys the result to a Cloudflare Worker's static assets, automatically when you edit content or on demand. It gives you free, serverless static hosting for a WordPress site you edit locally (for example in Local WP or WordPress Playground).

The built-in crawler renders each page in your browser using same-origin fetch, so it needs no server-side loopback and works even inside WordPress Playground — no other plugin required.

[!NOTE] This functionality is also provided by Simply Static Pro, which is more polished. Please support them if you can.

Features & To-Do

• [x] Built-in browser crawler (no Simply Static / server loopback; works in Playground)
• [x] Deploy an existing Simply Static export on a normal server
• [x] Choose the export source, or auto-select per environment
• [x] Deploy to Cloudflare Workers static assets (browser → CORS relay Worker → Cloudflare)
• [x] Automatic deployment on create/update/delete post
• [x] "Publish now" from the settings page or the admin toolbar (with live percent)
• [x] Live deployment status and history without a page refresh
• [x] Configure via a settings page or wp-config.php constants
• [x] Optional, unstored API token (prompted once per session)
• [ ] OAuth "Deploy to Cloudflare" (no token in the browser at all)
• [ ] Deploy to GitHub Pages

Installation

1. Install and activate this plugin (download a release zip, or build one — see below). The built-in crawler needs no other plugin; to deploy Simply Static output instead, also install Simply Static.
2. Create a Cloudflare API token with the Workers Scripts: Edit permission.
3. Create a Cloudflare Worker (the Hello World template is fine).
4. Deploy the CORS relay Worker (see Deploying from the browser) and copy its URL.
5. Go to Settings → Static Site Deployer and enter your Account ID, Worker name, relay URL, and (optionally) API token.

Configuring credentials

Enter credentials on the settings page, or define them in wp-config.php (these always win and are never stored in the database):

define( 'SSD_CLOUDFLARE_ACCOUNT_ID', 'your_account_id' );
define( 'SSD_CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN', 'your_api_token' );
define( 'SSD_CLOUDFLARE_SCRIPT_NAME', 'your_worker_name' );

Usage

• Auto-publish (default): create, update, or delete a post and the site is exported and deployed automatically after a short debounce. With the built-in crawler this runs in your browser — in the block editor it deploys on save (saving is locked until the deploy finishes), or a queued deploy runs the next time you open an admin page.
• Manual: turn off auto-publish and use the Publish now button on the settings page, or the Publish to Cloudflare item in the admin toolbar.

Choosing an export source

Under Settings → Static Site Deployer → Export source you can pick the built-in crawler, Simply Static, or Automatic. Automatic prefers Simply Static when it is installed on a normal server and falls back to the crawler otherwise. WordPress Playground always uses the crawler (it has no server-side loopback for Simply Static's crawl).

The API token

Store the token on the settings page or in a wp-config constant, or leave it blank to be prompted for a one-time token at publish. A prompted token is kept in browser memory for that session only and is never stored. Use Clear stored token to remove a saved token.

Deploying from the browser

The built-in crawler uploads to Cloudflare from your browser. Because api.cloudflare.com does not send CORS headers, requests go through a small relay Worker you deploy once. It stores no credentials — your token is passed through per request. See assets/crawler/worker/README.md for deployment, then paste the Worker URL into the Cloudflare API relay URL setting.

Using with WordPress Playground

This plugin is designed to pair with WordPress to Playground: import a Playground archive, edit the site, deploy changes to Cloudflare with this plugin, then export the archive again for backup or committing to GitHub.

Your Cloudflare token stays out of the exported archive. The API token is stored in its own option (ssd_api_token) that the plugin registers with the exporter's wp2p_excluded_option_names filter, so it is never written to the exported SQLite database. Your other settings — account ID, worker name, and the auto-publish/cleanup toggles — live in ssd_settings and do travel with the archive. After importing an archive into a fresh Playground, you only need to re-enter the token (or provide it via an uncommitted wp-config.php constant). This makes the exported zip safe to store in a public GitHub repository.

Exporting from Playground does not remove the token from the running site — it is simply omitted from the zip — so you only re-enter it when starting a new Playground from a committed archive.

Exports run synchronously in Playground automatically: Simply Static's normal background queue relies on loopback HTTP requests, which Playground does not provide, so without this it would loop forever and never finish. On a normal host you can enable the same mode under Settings → Synchronous export if your host blocks loopback requests.

Architecture

Browser-side crawler and deploy code lives in assets/crawler/ (crawler.js core, admin.js entry, cloudflare.js uploader, and the worker/ CORS relay).

Development

tests/run.sh   # lint + unit tests (no WordPress or dependencies required)
bin/build.sh   # produce dist/static-site-deployer.zip
node bin/crawl.mjs <baseUrl> [outDir]   # run the crawler against a live site (dev)

The plugin has no runtime dependencies, so no composer/vendor step is needed. (package.json holds dev-only tooling for the crawler test harness.)

Motivation

Static hosting is a great way to cut costs when your content isn't interactive. This plugin lets you edit WordPress locally and deploy to Cloudflare for free.

License

GPL-2.0-or-later.