Preview pull requests

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Before you start

• A website or API deployed from GitHub. Other app types, and apps from a Docker image or a template, have no previews.
• Pull requests from a branch of the same repository. Pull requests from forks are never built. Draft pull requests are built.

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How many previews you get

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Turn on previews

1

Open Settings

Open the app and go to Settings, Preview environments.

2

Turn them on

Tick Preview environments and click Save.

3

Open a pull request

Open a pull request on the app’s repository. Its preview appears on the Deploys tab within a minute.

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Find and manage previews

• Redeploy builds the preview again from the pull request’s latest commit.
• Delete removes the preview. Your app is not touched, and the next push to the pull request builds a new preview.

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What a preview runs with

• Environment variables: the app’s own, secrets included.
• Databases: none. A preview never gets the login of a database linked to the app, and a preview of an app that needs its database starts without one. A connection string you added yourself as an environment variable does reach previews.
• Sleeping: previews sleep when idle. The first request after a quiet period takes a few seconds longer.
• Expiry: a preview is deleted when its pull request closes, or 7 days after its last push.

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Do it from your tools

# Turn previews on (false turns them off)
curl -X PATCH "https://api.rafftechnologies.com/api/v1/apps/services/$APP_ID" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $RAFF_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"previews_enabled": true}'

# List the app's previews, with their address and state
curl "https://api.rafftechnologies.com/api/v1/apps/services/$APP_ID/previews" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $RAFF_API_KEY"

# Build one preview again ($PREVIEW_ID is its id from the list)
curl -X POST "https://api.rafftechnologies.com/api/v1/apps/previews/$PREVIEW_ID/redeploy" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $RAFF_API_KEY"

# Delete one preview
curl -X DELETE "https://api.rafftechnologies.com/api/v1/apps/previews/$PREVIEW_ID" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $RAFF_API_KEY"

# Read one preview's logs
curl "https://api.rafftechnologies.com/api/v1/apps/services/$APP_ID/logs?preview_id=$PREVIEW_ID" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $RAFF_API_KEY"

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Next steps