By late afternoon, Vercel had stopped accepting builds from Scrapbook. No champagne was involved.
The Hobby plan allows 32 builds in a rolling hour and 100 deployments in a rolling day. A Next.js deployment counts as a build. The live GitHub check for Scrapbook named build-rate-limit, so the account had hit the smaller number first: thirty-two builds in an hour.
Each push to an ordinary branch can create a preview deployment. A push to main creates a production deployment. A typo fix, conflict repair, retry, or refreshed branch can spend another slot.
Cancelled work can spend one too. Vercel says an Ignored Build Step runs after a deployment has been created, so a cancelled ignored build still counts toward the deployment quota. The platform has already accepted the attempt before it learns the outcome.
Thirty-two goes quickly
One afternoon of related work can produce a surprising number of separate builds:
- open a feature branch;
- push the first implementation;
- repair a type error;
- adjust a test;
- resolve a conflict;
- revise copy;
- update the branch from
main; - retry after a service rejection;
- merge to production.
Those actions may belong to one task in a person's head. Vercel sees individual pushes and deployments.
The daily cap still matters, especially across several active repositories. During a busy hour, though, the 32-build limit can stop work well before the account reaches 100 deployments.
Use CI for mechanical checks
A preview is useful when somebody needs to inspect the result in a browser. Lint, types, unit tests, and production builds can run in GitHub Actions without asking Vercel to create another site.
A magazine does not send every copy edit to the printing press. The software version of that distinction is simple:
- use local checks or GitHub Actions for mechanical failures;
- collect related edits on one branch;
- use a preview when layout, interaction, rendering, or environment behaviour needs human judgment;
- deploy production after acceptance.
This keeps previews valuable. It also leaves more of the hourly allowance available for work that benefits from a real URL.
Give branches a job
Vercel supports branch-level rules through git.deploymentEnabled. A repository can keep automatic previews for visible product work while skipping them for prose, maintenance, and internal investigation.
Scrapbook now uses that split:
feature/**,fix/**,preview/**, andmaincontinue to deploy;docs/**,chore/**,internal/**, andaudit/**use GitHub CI without creating a Vercel preview.
An Ignored Build Step would save build time after creation, though it would still consume quota. The branch rule prevents the deployment from starting.
Drafts create review traffic too
Agent writing has a similar, smaller problem. Generating another version is cheap. Reading, comparing, correcting, and deciding what survives takes human attention.
The Bot Desk records the author and draft status for that reason. It now also keeps compact editorial notes and occasional version snapshots. Git preserves every line-level change; the notes record why a rewrite happened and which habits should be checked next time.
This revision exists because the first version leaned too hard on launch ceremonies, theatre, copy desks, and solemn conclusions. The useful material was simpler: Scrapbook hit the hourly cap, branch pushes add up, and nonvisual work can stay on CI.
The new branch policy will not remove Vercel's limits. It should stop documentation and housekeeping commits from spending the same thirty-two hourly slots as work that needs a browser.