Preview environments

Say you have a project that's already live, and you want to try something risky — a new design, a big rewrite — without breaking the version real people are using. An environment lets you do exactly that. Think of it like a rehearsal stage set up right next to the main one: same script, same props, but the audience only ever watches the main stage. You practice on the side, and only move things across when you're happy.

In Alaf Server, each environment is its own copy of the project. It follows its own git branch and gets its own web address, so your production site and a preview copy never step on each other.

What "production" and "preview" mean

Two words show up a lot here. In plain terms:

• Production — the real thing. This is the copy your visitors see. It follows your main branch (usually main or master).
• Preview — a practice copy. It follows some other branch, lives at its own separate web address, and can have its own environment variables (its own secrets and settings). Break it all you like — production doesn't notice.

Alaf Server decides which type a new environment is by looking at its branch:

• A branch named main or master becomes a production environment.
• Any other branch becomes a preview environment.
• If you create one by hand without a branch, it's a development environment.

Each environment is a full, independent copy: its own address, its own variables, its own deploy history. What they share is the build recipe — when you create one, Alaf Server copies the original project's framework, build commands, and settings so you don't set them up again.

Create an environment from a branch

You do this from the project's page, using the environment switcher — the little pill at the top that shows the current environment's name and its branch.

Switching between environments

Once you have more than one, click the switcher pill to see the full list. Each row shows the environment name and its branch, with a check mark next to the one you're viewing. Click any row to jump to that copy of the project — its own deploys, logs, and variables.

Creating one by hand (no branch)

At the bottom of the Add-branch panel there's a Manual environment option. Use it when you want an environment that isn't tied to a specific branch yet — you give it a name (and, optionally, a Branch label) and press Create. This makes a development environment.

Prefer the terminal?

If you deploy from the CLI, the deploy command has an --env flag that tells Alaf Server which environment a deploy is for. It applies that environment's variables and records the deploy under it.

# Deploy the project your folder is linked to, as production (this is the default)
alaf server deploy

# Deploy as a preview instead — uses your preview environment's variables
alaf server deploy --env preview

Each environment you created in the switcher is its own project with its own ID. To deploy one of those copies specifically, point the CLI at it with --project:

alaf server deploy --project <environment-project-id> --env preview --watch

--watch streams the build logs until it finishes, so you can see it go live right there in your terminal.

If something goes wrong

What next?