How I stop throwaway Vercel demos piling up without manual deletes
Demo, prototype, and test deployments linger in your Vercel account and need manual cleanup. Vercel CLI now lets a deploy set the new project to expire so it deletes itself.
What it is
The Vercel CLI supports a --delete-project-after flag on vercel deploy. It schedules automatic deletion of the project after a chosen duration, and vercel project keep can remove an expiration later.
- Durations supported: 1h, 1d, 1w, 2w, and 30d
- CLI prints the exact date and time the project expires
- Flag only applies when vercel deploy creates the project
Applied case
I spin up a demo app for a stakeholder review with vercel deploy and pass --delete-project-after 1d. The project expires and is deleted automatically the next day, so nothing needs cleaning up by hand. If I deploy again to that existing project with the flag, the CLI warns me and leaves the expiration unchanged. Running vercel project keep cancels the expiration if the demo becomes permanent.
- Deploying to an existing project with the flag triggers a warning, not a change
When to use it
Use when creating prototypes, demos, or test apps you want gone automatically.
Skip when deploying long-lived projects or expecting the flag to update an existing one.
vercel deploy --delete-project-after 1d
vercel project keepRead more
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