Desifex

Deploying

Putting a version into test or live, what happens while it deploys, and what happens if it fails.

Open the Versions tab. The three environments are across the top; the version history is underneath.

The ordinary path#

  1. Put the latest on Test. One press. It saves a version from the current state of the preview and deploys that. You do not have to save a version first.
  2. Look at it. Open the test address. Show it to whoever needs to see it.
  3. Put what is on Test live. Also one press. The version that was tested — the one a person has actually looked at — is the one that goes live.

That is the path the environments exist for, and it is the primary action on each card.

Going straight to live#

Skip Test — put the latest live sits underneath, because sometimes a fix is obvious and waiting is silly. It looks like the second option because it is.

Choosing a version by hand#

Any version in the history can be sent to either environment — that is how you go back to an earlier one. Press Send to test or Put live on the version you want.

Before it happens you are shown what will change between the version running there now and the one you have chosen.

What happens while it deploys#

  1. The version is unpacked into its own directory.
  2. Dependencies are installed.
  3. The application is built for production.
  4. The server is started, and the platform waits for it to answer.
  5. Only then is the address moved to the new copy.

Every step appears in the same feed as a build, so you can see where it is rather than watching a spinner.

A version that does not build never replaces the one that is live. It fails at step 3, the address never moves, and the environment carries on serving what it was serving. This is the single most important property of the deployment and it is not optional.

It takes one to three minutes.

"Is this environment showing my latest work?"#

Each card says so plainly. It is a real check, not a guess: the platform compares what is deployed against the current state of the application, including work that has been built but not yet turned into a version.

So Test is showing your latest work is a statement you can rely on.

Asking for it in the conversation#

Deploying is one of the things the builder can do:

Call this one "First release" and put it on test.

It acts with your permissions. If you could not deploy by pressing the button, asking will not help — a viewer cannot deploy by asking nicely.

It also records why, in your words, on the deployment. A release nobody remembers ordering traces back to the sentence that ordered it.

After deploying#

  • The address keeps working while you deploy again. There is no window where it is down.
  • The data stays. Containers are replaced; storage is not.
  • Visitors starts counting. See Visitors.