Decide before the first prompt whether a v0 project is a prototype or code that will ship. Most team accounts keep v0 output as a prototype and most individual builders ship it, and both paths work once the choice is made. Production projects go through GitHub, with a working branch per chat, a deployment per branch, CI, human review, and then a publish on Vercel.
When you need this
- A v0 prototype is good enough that managers ask why it cannot ship.
- Engineers rebuild v0 screens from scratch.
- Changes from v0 reach production without a pull request.
- Your production app is not on Vercel, or not on Next.js.
Steps
Decide the path before the first prompt
Is this project a prototype to align people, or code that will ship?
What good looks likeA label on each project. Prototype projects stay in v0 and are discarded after the decision, as one product team describes on Hacker News. Production projects start connected to the real repository, or import it, so v0 works against the codebase engineers maintain.
Work inside the repository
Does v0 work on your repository with its rules, or on a copy?
What good looks likeImport from GitHub, which checks the repository out in a sandbox at a chosen base branch and supports monorepos. On the first change, v0 creates a working branch. It commits every change to that branch and never pushes to main. Once a repository is connected it is the source of truth. Deleting it can make the code unrecoverable.
Review like any other pull request
Do v0 branches pass the same checks and approvals as engineers' branches?
What good looks likeBranch protections, required checks, and required reviews in GitHub, which v0 follows. A blocked publish keeps the pull request open until a human completes the review. v0 fixes CI failures and merge conflicts on request. Its Review Code action adds a pass, and approval stays with a human reviewer.
Publish through the team's deployment rules
Who can publish, and what stops a publish that should not happen?
What good looks likeOne deployment per working branch, and Publish merging the pull request before the production deployment. Vercel Deployment Policies decide whether v0 can deploy to an environment. After a publish, the chat returns to the updated base branch and work continues in the same chat. Earlier complaints that every merge forced a new chat describe a January 2026 workflow.
Plan the exit to engineers' tools
When a project outgrows v0, where does it go?
What good looks likeThe same repository, opened in Cursor, Claude Code, or another editor. One builder cloned a v0 project's repository into Cursor and fixed a bug in 20 minutes that v0 had failed to fix. One developer runs v0-built admin apps in a self-managed AWS account. The sandbox also ships Claude Code for terminal work inside v0, and the v0 API lets other agents and internal tools start and deploy chats.
Questions for your team
- Which projects connected to v0 are prototypes, and which are production?
- Do our branch protections require a human review on v0's pull requests?
- Which Deployment Policy applies to v0 in production, and who can override it?
- If a project leaves Vercel hosting, what changes in its build and runtime?
Red flags
- Production projects with no GitHub connection, published straight from a chat.
- Prototype code promoted to production without a pull request.
- Required reviews switched off so v0 can publish.
- Engineers learning a project exists when it is already live.
Products in this piece
Sources
- Official documentation
- 9
- Public source
- 5
- v0 docs: GitHub
- v0 docs: Import from GitHub
- v0 docs: Deployments
- v0 docs: Projects
- Vercel docs: Deployment policies
- v0 docs: Pre-installed Agents
- v0 docs: v0 API
- v0 docs: Integrate v0 with AI agents
- Vercel blog: Introducing the new v0 (Feb 3, 2026)
- exiguus on Hacker News: product owners and architects prototype in v0 (Jul 9, 2025)
- ashryan on Hacker News: a v0 prototype for an internal pitch, then a designer's rebuild (Jan 22, 2025)
- rockoswald in r/v0_: moving a v0 project to Cursor through GitHub (Feb 8, 2026)
- raw_anon_1111 on Hacker News: a v0 admin app self-hosted on AWS (Apr 21, 2026)
- Fabi, Vercel Community: the forced branch-per-chat workflow (Jan 26, 2026)