Deploy to Cloudflare Pages

Cloudflare Pages provides fast global CDN deployment with unlimited bandwidth and Workers integration. It’s an excellent choice for high-traffic sites.

Prerequisites #

  • A Cloudflare account (free tier available)
  • Your markata-go site in a Git repository (GitHub or GitLab)

Cost #

Tier Bandwidth Builds Sites Price
Free Unlimited 500/mo Unlimited $0
Pro Unlimited 5,000/mo Unlimited $20/mo
Business Unlimited 20,000/mo Unlimited $200/mo

The free tier offers unlimited bandwidth, making it ideal for high-traffic sites.

Step 1: Connect Repository #

  1. Log in to the Cloudflare Dashboard
  2. Go to Workers & Pages > Create application > Pages
  3. Click Connect to Git
  4. Select your Git provider and repository

Step 2: Configure Build Settings #

Setting Value
Framework preset None
Build command See below
Build output directory public
Root directory (leave empty)

Build Command:

curl -sSL https://go.dev/dl/go1.22.0.linux-amd64.tar.gz | tar -xzf - && ./go/bin/go install github.com/WaylonWalker/markata-go/cmd/markata-go@latest && ~/go/bin/markata-go build --clean

Step 3: Set Environment Variables #

Click Environment variables and add:

Variable Value
MARKATA_GO_URL https://your-project.pages.dev

Set this for both Production and Preview environments.

Step 4: Deploy #

Click Save and Deploy. Cloudflare will build and deploy your site.

Method 2: Wrangler CLI #

Deploy using the Wrangler CLI for more control:

# Install wrangler
npm install -g wrangler

# Login to Cloudflare
wrangler login

# Build your site locally
MARKATA_GO_URL=https://example.com markata-go build --clean

# Create a new Pages project (first time)
wrangler pages project create my-site

# Deploy
wrangler pages deploy public --project-name=my-site

For subsequent deployments:

markata-go build --clean
wrangler pages deploy public --project-name=my-site

Custom Domain Setup #

Step 1: Add Domain to Cloudflare #

If your domain isn’t already on Cloudflare:

  1. Go to Websites > Add a Site
  2. Enter your domain
  3. Update nameservers at your registrar to Cloudflare’s

Step 2: Connect Domain to Pages #

  1. Go to your Pages project
  2. Click Custom domains > Set up a custom domain
  3. Enter your domain (e.g., example.com)
  4. Click Activate domain

Cloudflare automatically configures DNS and provisions SSL certificates.

Step 3: Add www Subdomain (Optional) #

  1. Add www.example.com as another custom domain
  2. Or create a redirect rule in Rules > Redirect Rules:
    • If hostname equals www.example.com
    • Then redirect to https://example.com

Step 4: Update Configuration #

Update your markata-go.toml:

[markata-go]
url = "https://example.com"

Headers and Redirects #

Using _headers File #

Create static/_headers (copied to output during build):

/*
  X-Frame-Options: DENY
  X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
  Referrer-Policy: strict-origin-when-cross-origin
  Permissions-Policy: accelerometer=(), camera=(), geolocation=(), gyroscope=(), magnetometer=(), microphone=(), payment=(), usb=()

/static/*
  Cache-Control: public, max-age=31536000, immutable

/*.html
  Cache-Control: public, max-age=0, must-revalidate

/*.xml
  Cache-Control: public, max-age=3600

Using _redirects File #

Create static/_redirects:

# Redirect old URLs
/old-path/* /new-path/:splat 301
/blog/old-post /blog/new-post 301

# Proxy API requests
/api/* https://api.example.com/:splat 200

Preview Deployments #

Cloudflare Pages automatically creates preview deployments for:

  • Every branch push
  • Every pull request

Preview URLs follow this pattern:

<commit-hash>.<project-name>.pages.dev

You can also access branch-specific previews:

<branch-name>.<project-name>.pages.dev

Workers Integration #

Adding a Worker #

Create functions/ directory for Pages Functions (Workers):

// functions/api/hello.js
export async function onRequest(context) {
  return new Response(JSON.stringify({
    message: "Hello from Cloudflare Workers!"
  }), {
    headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json" }
  });
}

Access at /api/hello.

Adding Middleware #

Create functions/_middleware.js for all routes:

export async function onRequest(context) {
  // Add security headers
  const response = await context.next();
  response.headers.set("X-Custom-Header", "value");
  return response;
}

Environment Variables #

Setting Variables #

In the Cloudflare dashboard:

  1. Go to your Pages project
  2. Click Settings > Environment variables
  3. Add variables for Production and Preview separately
Variable Production Preview
MARKATA_GO_URL https://example.com (empty)

Accessing in Workers #

// functions/api/config.js
export async function onRequest(context) {
  const url = context.env.MARKATA_GO_URL;
  return new Response(JSON.stringify({ url }));
}

Troubleshooting #

Build Fails: Go Not Found #

The build environment doesn’t have Go pre-installed. Use the build command that installs Go:

curl -sSL https://go.dev/dl/go1.22.0.linux-amd64.tar.gz | tar -xzf - && ./go/bin/go install github.com/WaylonWalker/markata-go/cmd/markata-go@latest && ~/go/bin/markata-go build --clean

Build Timeout #

Free tier builds timeout after 20 minutes. Optimize by:

  1. Caching Go installation (not currently supported)
  2. Pre-building locally and deploying: 
    markata-go build --clean
wrangler pages deploy public

404 on Subpages #

Ensure your _redirects file doesn’t interfere. Cloudflare Pages serves index.html files automatically for clean URLs.

Headers Not Applied #

Verify _headers file is in your output directory:

markata-go build --clean
cat public/_headers

Custom Domain Not Working #

  1. Ensure domain is added to Cloudflare (not just Pages)
  2. Check DNS is proxied (orange cloud enabled)
  3. Wait for SSL certificate provisioning

Performance Features #

Automatic Optimizations #

Cloudflare Pages automatically provides:

  • Global CDN distribution
  • Brotli compression
  • HTTP/2 and HTTP/3
  • Early Hints
  • Smart caching

Web Analytics #

Enable Cloudflare Web Analytics (free):

  1. Go to Analytics in your Cloudflare dashboard
  2. Click Web Analytics > Add a site
  3. Add the script to your template:
<script defer src='https://static.cloudflareinsights.com/beacon.min.js' data-cf-beacon='{"token": "your-token"}'></script>

Page Rules #

Create Page Rules for advanced caching:

  1. Go to Rules > Page Rules
  2. Create rules for your domain

Example: Cache everything for static assets:

example.com/static/*
Cache Level: Cache Everything
Edge Cache TTL: 1 month

Comparison with Cloudflare Workers Sites #

Feature Pages Workers Sites
Git integration Yes No
Preview deploys Automatic Manual
Build system Built-in External
Functions Pages Functions Workers
Best for Static sites Dynamic apps

Pages is recommended for markata-go sites.

Next Steps #