When I’m trying to create the public files, I get this error on fresh vex-hugo installation.
➜ exampleSite (master) ✗ hugo
Total in 11 ms
Error: module "vex-hugo" not found; either add it as a Hugo Module or store it in "/Users/houmie/projects/vex-hugo/exampleSite/themes".: module does not exist
The recommended way would be for you to organize your Hugo project in its own folder and place the theme undes /themes/vex-hugo/ or mount it as a module.
You are not really supposed to deploy from within an exampleSite folder (it can be done as you found out, but better stick with the recommended workflows as described in the Hugo Docs, especially since it seems that you only recently started out using Hugo).