Publish your website from GitHub to your JetHost hosting

Your JetHost account comes with an AI assistant you can connect to your customer profile. This is made possible by the JetHost AI Connector. Once it’s connected, it can put the website files from your private GitHub repository straight onto your hosting, no FTP, no file uploads, no technical setup on your side.

This guide shows you how. You don’t need to be a developer. The assistant does the technical work; your part is mostly answering a couple of its questions and clicking a few times in GitHub. It takes about 10 minutes.
New to these words? There’s a plain-English glossary at the bottom of this guide.

What you’ll need

A JetHost hosting account with the JetHost AI assistant connected to your profile.
A private GitHub repository that already contains your website files.
Access to that repository on GitHub.com (so you can add one key and one small file).
That’s it. You won’t need to install anything or use any technical tools.

How it works, in plain terms

Think of it as three simple stages:

You tell the assistant which repository and which website (domain) you want.
You give GitHub permission to share your code with your hosting — by pasting one “key” the assistant gives you, and adding one small settings file.
The assistant publishes your site and confirms it’s live.

You can repeat stage 3 any time you update your website.

Step 1: Tell the assistant what you want

Open your AI assistant (the one connected to your JetHost profile) and tell it what you’d like to do. Copy the message below exactly — you only need to fill in your repository link and your domain. The rest tells the assistant how to publish safely, so you don’t have to understand it:

Copy-paste starter message

"Hi! I'd like to publish my website from GitHub to my JetHost hosting, using the JetHost tools connected to my account. • My repository: https://github.com/… (paste your link)• My website (domain): example.com (your domain)
Please walk me through it step by step: 1. Generate the deploy key and tell me exactly what to paste into GitHub. 2. Create the .cpanel.yml settings file for me. When you write it, please use simple cp copy commands and follow these rules: copy the files into my site's folder without deleting anything already there; do not use rsync; and at the very end set permissions to the standard web values — folders to 755, files to 644, and the site's own folder to 751 (this last step must be the last line). Show me the file before we use it.3. Once the key and the file are in place, publish the site and then check that it loads correctly."
the rest. The https:// version is the easiest to find: on your repository page, click the green Code button and copy the address shown (for example https://github.com/your-name/your-site.git).

You don’t need to understand steps 2’s technical wording, it’s there so the assistant publishes without breaking your site’s permissions. Just paste the whole message.

The assistant already knows your hosting account, so you don’t need to look up any account numbers or folder names — it finds all of that for you. It just needs:

the link to your GitHub repository, and

the website (domain) you want it published to.

Which repository link do I copy? GitHub offers two versions of the link — one starting with https://… and one starting with git@github.com:…. Either one works — the assistant handles

Step 2: Add the assistant’s key to GitHub

To let your hosting fetch your code, GitHub needs a deploy key — think of it as a read-only pass. It lets your hosting look at your repository and copy the files, but it cannot change or delete anything in your code. Safe by design.

The assistant will generate this key and show you a long line of text starting with ssh-ed25519 …. Copy it, then:

Open your repository on GitHub.com.
Click Settings (in the repository’s top menu).
In the left sidebar, click Deploy keys.
Click Add deploy key.
Title: type something you’ll recognise, like JetHost.
Key: paste the key the assistant gave you.
Leave “Allow write access” unchecked — the read-only pass is all that’s needed.
Click Add key.

Then go back to the assistant and tell it the key has been added.

Step 3: Add the small settings file

Your hosting needs to know where to place your website files. That’s handled by a tiny settings file called .cpanel.yml that lives in your repository. The assistant writes this file’s contents for you — you just add it to GitHub. The easiest way, right in your browser:

On your repository’s main page on GitHub, click Add file → Create new file.
In the filename box, type the name exactly, including the dot at the start:

.cpanel.yml

Paste the text the assistant gave you into the big editing area.
Scroll down and click Commit changes.

That’s it, the settings file is now in your repository.

Tip: the name must be exactly .cpanel.yml (with the dot in front and ending in .yml). A slightly different name won’t be recognised.

(If you’re comfortable with Git on your own computer, you can instead add and push this file the usual way — but the browser method above needs no tools at all.)

Step 4: Let the assistant publish it

Tell the assistant everything is ready. It will publish your site and then confirm, usually within a few seconds — telling you the result and when it was deployed.

Open your website in a browser to see it live.

Updating your website later

Whenever you change your website:

Save your changes to GitHub as you normally would.

Ask the assistant to publish the latest version again (for example: “Please deploy the latest version of my site to example.com”).

You don’t need to repeat Steps 2 and 3 — the key and settings file stay in place. Just ask the assistant to publish again.

If something doesn’t look right

“The assistant says it can’t find a settings file.” Double-check the file in your repository is named exactly .cpanel.yml (dot in front, .yml at the end) and that you clicked Commit changes after creating it.

“GitHub wouldn’t accept the key” or the site won’t load. Make sure you pasted the key into Deploy keys (not another settings page), and into the correct repository. If GitHub says the key is “already in use,” ask the assistant to generate a fresh one.

“My site didn’t change after an update.” Make sure your changes were saved to GitHub first, then ask the assistant to publish again.

“The site published, but it shows a blank page or an error.” This is usually a file-permissions issue. Ask the assistant: “Please reset the permissions on my site to the standard web values — folders to 755, files to 644, and the site folder to 751.” It can do this for you in a few seconds.

Still stuck? Just tell the assistant what you’re seeing — it can check the status and guide you. Or contact JetHost support.

Glossary

Repository (repo) — the folder on GitHub where your website’s files are stored.

Private repository — a repository only you (and people you allow) can see.

Deploy key — a read-only pass that lets your hosting fetch code from your repository. It can look, but never change your code.

.cpanel.yml — a tiny settings file in your repository that tells your hosting where to put your website files. The assistant creates its contents for you.

Document root — the folder on your hosting that a website is served from. The assistant finds this for you automatically.

Deploy / publish — copying your website files from GitHub onto your hosting so they go live.