chesterdocs

#Development and production deployments

A process has at most one development and one production deployment at a time; only the production one is reachable from catalogs, chats and other processes, and the development one switches itself off after 30 runs or 24 hours.

The Deploy Process dialog: (1) the Development card, for trying things out, which switches itself off (2) after 24 hours or 30 executions, and (3) the Production card, live at once and the one people and other processes use. Nothing is selected yet.

#Deploy

  1. Save the process. Deploy always takes the saved version; the button is hidden while you edit.
  2. Click Deploy, pick Development or Production, and click Deploy.

The process must be valid: a step with an error blocks the deployment ("Cannot deploy: the process contains validation errors"). Warnings and problems of the process as a whole — such as a path that never ends — do not. See Check that a process can run.

⚠️ A process that is not executable is deployed without any check.

⚠️ Messages from the server — a failed deploy, a deploy already running — are German.

#Who reaches which deployment

flowchart LR
  subgraph Prod["Production deployment"]
    P1["Process catalog<br/>in Execution"]
    P2["Call activities<br/>of other processes"]
    P3["Agent chat"]
  end
  subgraph Dev["Development deployment"]
    D1["Its own webhook"]
  end
  S["Static URL"] --> Prod
  S --> Dev
  W["Webhook of a<br/>message start event"] --> Prod
  W --> D1
Started by Production Development
A person, from a catalog ✅ ❌
A call activity ✅ ❌ — also when the calling process runs as development
An agent chat ✅ ❌
A webhook of a message start event ✅ its own ✅ its own
A static URL ✅ ✅ — the same request starts both

⚠️ There is no screen that starts a development deployment by hand. Test single steps in the workbench instead, or start the development deployment through its webhook.

#Which environment a step uses

Each step names its Environment — its host and credential. The deployment takes exactly that environment, whether you deploy to development or production. ⚠️ The help text says the environment is "resolved per target environment on deploy"; it is not. A step pointed at a production environment calls production from a development deployment too.

An inactive environment stops the deployment. A changed host or credential takes effect only with the next deployment.

#One of each

A new deployment replaces the previous one of the same kind: new runs use the new version. Runs that already started keep running on the version they started with.

#When a development deployment switches off

A development deployment switches itself off after 30 runs or 24 hours, whichever comes first — also across a restart. After that it no longer starts anything.

  • ⚠️ Nobody is told. The Versions tab shows Not deployed after a refresh.
  • ❌ It cannot be switched on again. Deploy again: that deploys the current saved process, with a fresh budget.

#The Versions tab

The Versions tab of "Order to invoice": Production has no deployment yet; Development shows one active deployment, deployed by Adam Admin, with 2 runs, and a Withdraw button. The callout on Production says every deployment is kept, and a running instance stays on the version it started with.

Versions lists every deployment of the process, grouped into Production and Development, newest first, with who deployed it, when, and how often it ran. Withdraw switches the active one off — see Withdraw a deployment.

  • ⚠️ The status Aktiv is German whatever the language of the screen.
  • ⚠️ The run count only counts development runs; production rows show 0.
  • ❌ A deployment cannot be opened from here, compared, or restored.