Cloudflare Pages — branch deploys mitigation for 100-project limit

Branch-based environments inside each CF Pages project

CF Pages branch deploys — 100-project mitigation

Problem

Cloudflare Pages free tier caps at 100 projects per account. If each app × each environment got its own project, the family would quickly blow past the limit (26 apps × 3 envs = 78 projects, plus per-PR previews = explosion).

Solution

One CF Pages project per app. All environments live inside that single project as branch deploys. 26 apps → 26 projects, well under the 100 ceiling, with infinite preview headroom.

Branch → environment mapping

Per-project CF Pages config

For each app’s CF Pages project:

1. Connect the repo

• Dashboard → Pages → Create project → Connect to Git
• Pick the app’s GH repo
• Build command: pnpm install && pnpm build
• Build output directory: dist/ (Astro) or .next/ (Next) etc.

2. Production branch

• Production branch: main
• Custom domain: <app>.oriz.in (DNS configured via Cloudflare DNS API; see cf-dns-add-api-subdomain.md)

3. Preview branches

• Settings → Builds & deployments → Preview deployments
• Set to All non-Production branches — every branch push gets a preview URL
• Auto-PR comment posts the preview URL on each PR (built-in)

4. Staging alias

• Settings → Custom domains → add staging.<project>.pages.dev aliased to the staging branch
• Push to staging branch redeploys this alias

5. Environment variables per branch

• Settings → Environment variables
• Production scope: load from .env.production.enc (Razorpay LIVE keys, prod URLs)
• Preview scope: load from .env.development.enc (Razorpay TEST keys, dev URLs)
• See [[security/env-three-file-split]]

Workflow per developer

# Local dev
git checkout -b feat/new-thing
git push origin feat/new-thing
# → auto-preview at https://<hash>.<project>.pages.dev

# Promote to staging
git push origin feat/new-thing:staging
# → staging.<project>.pages.dev

# Promote to prod
gh pr merge --merge --branch feat/new-thing
# → main branch deploys to <app>.oriz.in

Capacity ledger

| Total apps | 26 | | CF Pages projects used | 26 (1 per app) | | Free tier ceiling | 100 | | Headroom | 74 |

Headroom is enough for 74 more apps before we’d need to consolidate. At current growth rate (~10 apps/year), that’s ~7 years of runway.

When to break the rule

If a single app needs more than 3 active long-lived branches (e.g. main + staging + canary + beta), it gets its own preview-only sub-project. Doesn’t apply today for any app.

Cross-refs

• [[rules/cloudflare-pages-only]] — the hosting lock
• [[rules/never-hit-quotas]] — the headroom rule
• [[security/env-three-file-split]] — env variable mapping per branch
• [[runbooks/cf-dns-add-api-subdomain]] — DNS for custom domains

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