Staging Area
Make a full copy of an application on its own domain, try changes there, and push it over production when it works.
A staging area is a complete copy of this application — files, database, runtime — on a domain of its own. It is where you try the plugin, the theme or the upgrade before your visitors see it.
Create the copy
Press Create staging application.
Accept the suggested Domain for the copy or type your own. The dialog is clear that this is on you: "Point this domain at this server first, or the copy will be unreachable."
Press Create staging application and leave the window open. "This copies the whole application and can take several minutes. Keep this window open — there is no progress to come back to."
The copy appears in Applications as its own application, named
<name> (Staging), with its own sidebar, its own files and its own
certificate.
Living with it
| Action | What happens |
|---|---|
| Open staging application | Opens the copy's own dashboard. |
| Push to production | Replaces the production application with what is on staging. |
| Delete | Deletes the staging copy. Production is not touched. |
Push to production has no undo
The panel words it exactly that way: "Replaces [the production domain] with what is on the staging application. There is no undo." Take a backup first, and remember that anything written to production since the copy was made — orders, comments, uploads — is replaced along with the code.
Two things to set on the copy
Keep it out of search. A staging copy of a public site is a duplicate of your content on a reachable domain. Turn on Password Protection for the staging application — it is the use the panel suggests for that feature.
It is a snapshot, not a mirror. The copy stops tracking production the moment it is made. A staging area that has been sitting for a month is testing against a month-old database.