Vercel Deployment Issues

I wanted to create a minimal payload / nextjs app without the template boilerplate, so I did

then

and

... the project runs fine both with

and

+

... but when I deploy to vercel, I get the following error:

Error: Error: cannot find Payload config. Please create a configuration file located at the root of your current working directory called "payload.config.js" or "payload.config.ts".

I've tried duplicating the payload.config.ts file in multiple places, including the root as well as the

folder ... the

is being properly set (

), and I've tried all variations of path in root, with and without the starting

... does anyone have any ideas?