Preview and production environments

Easel groups deployments into two environments: Preview and Production. Pushes to your production branch create production deployments. Pushes to any other branch create preview deployments.

Preview deployments

The Preview environment is for deployments that are not production. Each deployment gets generated URLs (commit-specific and branch-specific) so you can open and share a build without affecting the live site. Preview deployments use only those generated URLs. They do not get custom domains.

You can see commit and branch URLs on any deployment’s detail page: open the Deployments tab, select a deployment, and use the Domains section. For how those URLs are built, see Deployment URLs.

Production deployments

The Production environment is the live deployment visitors reach. The project has one production URL per workspace (built from project name and workspace). When you deploy to production with auto-assign on, that URL updates to the new deployment and the deployment is marked Current. You can also attach custom domains; they serve the same production deployment.

For the exact production URL pattern, see Deployment URLs.

Auto-assign production domains

In Project settings → Environments, turn Auto-assign production domains on or off. It is on by default.

• On: When a production deployment becomes READY, Easel assigns the production hostname and live custom domains to it and marks it Current.
• Off: Production builds still complete and stay Staged. They do not receive production domains until you promote them. Use auto-assign off when you want to verify a production build before it goes live. Instant Rollback also turns auto-assign off until you undo the rollback. See Roll back or promote a production deployment.

Set the production branch

Configure the production branch per project in Project settings → Environments. You can edit it in the Production row.

Pushes to that branch create production deployments. Pushes to any other branch create preview deployments. The project must be connected to Git (via the repository webhook) for pushes to trigger deployments.

If no production branch is set or no repository is connected, the Environments table shows “No branch configuration” until you connect a repository or set the branch.

Related guides

• Roll back or promote a production deployment: Instant Rollback, staged promote, and preview promote
• Deployment URLs: how commit, branch, and production URLs are built
• Custom domains: attach your hostname to production
• Environment variables: scope secrets to preview and production
• Deployments: how deployments are created and managed