Noob can't find deployed site

hi folks, I tried to use the guide at https://docs.netlify.com/integrations/frameworks/express/#deploy-your-express-app-with-netlify-cli and the example at netlify-file-browser/netlify.toml at v2 · hrishikesh-k/netlify-file-browser · GitHub to deploy and run a very simple ‘hello world’ nodeJS backend-only app, and everything says it deployed successfully, but every URL I try barfs with a 404. I looked at [Support Guide] I’ve deployed my site but I still see "Page not found” and Site cannot be accessed broken link or url that doesn't exist to no avail. Is it that I’m deployed but not running, or runnig but using the wrong URLs, or … ?

Site is https://cosmic-sunshine-42f21a.netlify.app/. Let’s call that “U”. I’ve tried pinging U, U/hello, U/dist/hello/, U/api/hello, U/api/functions/hello, U/.netlify/functions/api/hello, U/functions/hello, and probably some others, and get nothin’ but 404s.

thanks!
PS here’s my netlify.toml
[build]
base = “/”
command = “echo Building Functions”
publish = “/dist”
[functions]
external_node_modules = [“express”]
node_bundler = “esbuild”
[[redirects]]
force = true
from = “/api/*”
status = 200
to = “/.netlify/functions/api/:splat”

and here’s functions/hello.js:
import express, { Router } from “express”;
import serverless from “serverless-http”;

const api = express();

const router = Router();
router.get(“/hello”, (req, res) => res.send(“Hello from functons/hello.js”));

api.use(“/api/”, router);

export const handler = serverless(api);

I fixed it :https://cosmic-sunshine-42f21a.netlify.app/api/hello now is up and running . Just in case anybody else gets in this same situation, and is similarlly noob… here’s what I had to do. Not sure if this was all necessary, but it was sufficient:

  1. remove ‘publish=dist’ from netlify.toml
  2. have a file in ‘functions’ called api.js that catches ‘hello’, NOT a file called ‘hello.js’