Adding a .gitignore (if doing automated deployment) will help a lot as it’s relied upon everywhere especially when it comes to hosting.
You could refer to this thread to decide on which ones you want to exclude - What should we include in our .gitignore file?.
There is also a project.pgml file in the root of your project (when using Design panel) that you could exclude.
With regards to home page, its best to rename your current one into index.html which again is a widely adopted convention. If not, then each hosting provider generally let you choose it as your homepage, through configurations in their UI, or through a config file, for eg, netlify.toml or vercel.json added to your project root.
Also, right-click on your project root in File Panel and choose Publish and you can preview your site netlify (free).