Working in Production

Production is the only environment where live client data is stored and where end-users interact with the application. The Unqork platform enforces specific restrictions in Production to protect live data and prevent unreviewed changes from reaching end-users.

Warning: All development should take place in Staging and move to Production through the promotion pipeline; never directly in Production. The platform provides no warnings or confirmation dialogs when saving in Production, and every change goes live immediately. If a Creator saves a breaking change in Production, end-users encounter it with no automatic rollback. See Recovering from an Accidental Production Edit if this happens.

Identifying Your Environment

The platform does not display a dedicated banner or badge indicating the current environment. For standard Unqork-hosted environments, the URL is the primary signal: Production follows the pattern {organization}-prod.unqork.io, while non-production environments use patterns like {organization}-staging.unqork.io, {organization}-qa.unqork.io, or {organization}-uat.unqork.io. Environments with custom domains do not follow this pattern.

Creators unsure which environment they are working in should confirm with their environment administrator before making changes.

What the Platform Blocks in Production

These restrictions are enforced server-side. Blocked actions do not appear in the UI or are rejected if attempted directly.

Branch and Version Operations

All draft-based development is blocked in Production. Draft-based development is the branching and versioning workflow available in non-production environments. See Application Versioning.

Application Settings and Dependencies

What Is Available in Production

The restrictions above are the complete list of what is blocked. Everything not listed is available in Production.

Promoting resources is not blocked. Creators with the appropriate permissions can promote applications, styles, groups, roles, and translations from lower environments to Production. See Application Promotions and Promoting Resources.

All Administration pages are available to Creators whose Creator role grants administration access. Production does not change or remove Creator role permissions. This includes Environment Administration, Style Administration, Creator User Administration, Express User Administration, Express Role Administration, Global Variables, Services Administration, SSO Management, and all other administration surfaces.

Viewing and previewing modules is not blocked. The module builder is accessible in Production in read-only mode; the View in Express button is available for previewing modules.

UDLC Toolkit tools (monitoring, logs, metrics, and other observability tools) are available to administrators. See UDLC Toolkit.

Common Production Tasks

Changing the Default Style

The environment's default style cannot be changed from Environment Administration; that page displays the current style as read-only text. The correct uses Style Administration:

1. In a non-production environment, create or update the style in Style Administration.
2. Promote the style to Production: in Style Administration, select the style, select Promote, and choose Production as the target environment.
3. In the Production environment, open Style Administration, find the promoted style, and select Set as default.

The Set as default action in Style Administration is not blocked in Production. Only application draft operations are blocked.

Updating Environment Configuration

Environment-level configuration covers authentication settings, session management, security policies, and integrations. Each environment manages these settings independently. To update configuration in Production, open Environment Administration directly in the Production environment. Configuration changes in Environment Administration are not blocked by the production restrictions that apply to application drafts.

Recovering from an Accidental Production Edit

If a Creator saves a change directly in Production:

1. Identify the last known-good version in a lower environment (Staging or UAT).
2. Promote the known-good version from the lower environment to Production. Promoting overwrites the current Production version with the correct one.
3. Verify the restored version in Production.

Do not attempt to fix the issue by making additional edits in Production. Restore from a lower environment instead.

Pre-Production Has the Same Restrictions

Pre-Production is an optional environment level that uses the Production codebase. All the same restrictions apply: draft-based development, Smart Component Draft, and every blocked action listed above are unavailable in Pre-Production. The only differences are that Pre-Production holds test data instead of live client data, and has a distinct URL.