Deploy Jekyll to thin.host

Build a Jekyll site to _site/ with the right baseurl and deploy it to thin.host. thin.host serves the static files and gives you a live URL right away. Your agent can do every step for you through the thin.host MCP server, or you can run one curl command.

At a glance

Step	Jekyll
Build command	`JEKYLL_ENV=production bundle exec jekyll build`
Folder to deploy	`_site/`
Preview build (served at `/s/my-site/`)	`JEKYLL_ENV=production bundle exec jekyll build --baseurl /s/my-site`
Deploy	`curl -F file=@site.zip -H "Authorization: Bearer $THINHOST_API_KEY" https://thin.host/v1/websites/archive`
Live URL	`https://thin.host/s/my-site/`, or your own domain

Before you start

Requires: Ruby (with RubyGems, GCC and Make) and Bundler.
A thin.host account. Sign up, then create an API key under Settings (for curl and the local MCP server), or connect your agent with OAuth as shown in Quickstart (MCP).

Create a project (skip if you have one)

gem install jekyll bundler && jekyll new my-site

Set the base path

Until a domain points at it, a thin.host site lives under a sub-path: https://thin.host/s/<slug>/. Jekyll prefixes links with baseurl when templates use the relative_url filter. Override it on the command line for the preview build; it is empty for a custom domain and never "/".

# _config.yml
url: "https://www.example.com"
baseurl: ""

Where readers will look	Build with
The preview URL `https://thin.host/s/my-site/`	`JEKYLL_ENV=production bundle exec jekyll build --baseurl /s/my-site`
A custom domain, or a free `<name>.thin.host` subdomain	`JEKYLL_ENV=production bundle exec jekyll build` (base path `/`)

Pick the slug (my-site here) before you build the preview, and pass the same slug when you deploy.

Build

JEKYLL_ENV=production bundle exec jekyll build

The finished site is in _site/. That folder is what you deploy.

Deploy from your agent (MCP)

Connect thin.host to Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Codex or ChatGPT once (setup for each client), then ask:

Build this Jekyll project for thin.host with the slug my-site and publish the _site/ folder.

With the local server (uvx thinhost-mcp) the agent runs the build and calls publish_website with the absolute path of _site/; large builds are split across requests automatically. Later changes go out with update_website and sync=true, which also removes files the new build dropped.

The hosted connector (https://thin.host/mcp, used by claude.ai and ChatGPT) cannot read your disk. From a coding agent it uploads with the REST call below; otherwise it publishes from a public link to a zip or HTML file with publish_website_from_url.

Deploy with curl

cd _site && zip -r ../site.zip . && cd -
curl -F file=@site.zip -F title="My Jekyll site" -F slug=my-site \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $THINHOST_API_KEY" \
  https://thin.host/v1/websites/archive

The JSON response includes url, the live address (https://thin.host/s/my-site/). To redeploy, upload the new zip to the site's archive endpoint; pages and assets missing from it are removed:

curl -F file=@site.zip \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $THINHOST_API_KEY" \
  https://thin.host/v1/websites/my-site/archive

A single upload can be up to 30 MB. See the REST API reference for every field.

Add a custom domain

Open the site in the dashboard and add your hostname under Custom Domains, for example www.example.com. A <name>.thin.host subdomain is free and works immediately.
Create the DNS record the dashboard shows: a CNAME pointing at cname.thin.host. TLS is issued automatically once DNS resolves.
Rebuild with the base path / (JEKYLL_ENV=production bundle exec jekyll build) and redeploy.

Pages on a custom domain get a canonical tag, a generated robots.txt and a sitemap.xml.

Jekyll notes

Write internal links as {{ '/about/' | relative_url }}; hard-coded /paths ignore baseurl.
GitHub Pages builds Jekyll for you; on thin.host you upload the built _site/ folder.

FAQ

Can I keep my GitHub Pages Jekyll site and also deploy it to thin.host?

Yes. Build locally or in CI with bundle exec jekyll build and upload _site/. GitHub Pages' plugin allowlist does not apply, so any plugin your Gemfile installs works.

Why does the preview URL load without styles or scripts?

The site is served under /s/<slug>/ until a custom domain points at it, so a build that references /assets/... asks the thin.host root for files that live under the sub-path. Build with the base path set to /s/<slug>/ for the preview, or map a domain (a free <name>.thin.host subdomain works) and build with base /.

How do I redeploy?

Rebuild, zip the output folder again and POST it to /v1/websites/<slug>/archive, or ask your agent to run update_website with sync=true. Sync removes files the new build no longer contains, so old hashed bundles do not pile up.

How large can a site be?

A single archive upload can be up to 30 MB. The local MCP server (uvx thinhost-mcp) reads the build folder directly and splits large sites across requests, up to 150 MB.

Sources

Commands and options checked against the official Jekyll docs on 2026-10-14:

Other frameworks: all deploy guides. Coming from another host? Compare thin.host.