A VS Code Extension That Zips, Uploads, and Deploys to Linux Servers in One Click

Many developers still deploy frontend and small backend projects by hand because setting up a CI/CD pipeline feels like overkill. Simple Deploy removes the repetitive SFTP dance without forcing a workflow migration, cutting a 5-to-12-minute manual process down to a button press and a log review.

Manual deployment still means opening an SFTP client, navigating local and remote directories, dragging files, and double-checking that configs and user uploads aren't overwritten. Simple Deploy moves that entire sequence into VS Code. A project is configured once with a server address, an upload rule like `dist/**`, optional delete and retain rules, and shell commands to run before and after the transfer.

Instead of pushing hundreds of individual files, the extension compresses everything into a single ZIP archive, uploads it, and decompresses on the server. That sidesteps the per-file overhead that makes SFTP drags slow and that weakens rsync's incremental advantage when frontend builds produce new hashed filenames every time. Pre-commands run locally and halt the deploy on failure; post-commands run on the server for restarts or cache clears.

The extension targets the gap between ad-hoc manual uploads and a full CI/CD pipeline. It suits personal sites, documentation, client projects, and any workflow where a developer wants to push a prepared build to a Linux box with a single click and a clear log of what happened.