Instant Rollbacks on Launch

Instant Rollbacks on Launch allow you to revert your application to a selected previous successful deployment without triggering a rebuild.

Use Instant Rollbacks to:

• Recover quickly from problematic releases
• Reduce downtime
• Maintain application stability

What You Will Learn

• How instant rollbacks recover quickly from a problematic release.

• How rollbacks reduce downtime and help maintain application stability.

• Which deployments are eligible for rollback and how long they are retained.

• How to perform a rollback and what happens during it.

How Instant Rollbacks Work

Every deployment on Launch goes through the following lifecycle:

• QUEUED → DEPLOYING → LIVE: Normal deployment flow.
• FAILED or CANCELLED: Deployment did not complete successfully and cannot be used for rollback.
• ARCHIVED: When a new deployment goes LIVE, the previous LIVE deployment becomes ARCHIVED. These ARCHIVED deployments are the only candidates for rollback.

When a new deployment goes LIVE:

• The previous LIVE deployment becomes ARCHIVED.
• A limited number of recent ARCHIVED deployments are available for rollback.

Rollback Eligibility

You can roll back only to deployments that meet all of the following conditions:

Condition	Details
ARCHIVED state	Only previously LIVE deployments (now archived) can be used for rollback.
Within the retention window	Only a limited number of recent deployments are retained based on your plan.
Infrastructure is still available	The deployment's assets and resources must still exist. Older deployments may be cleaned up automatically.

Retention Window

Launch retains a limited number of previous deployments for rollback. Only deployments within this window are available for rollback.

The following Rollback Retention window tiers are available on Launch:

Rollback Tier	Retention Window Count
Free (Default)	1
Self-Serve	3
Enterprise	5

The Retention window starts with Free Tier by default, but you can request an upgrade in the plan as per the use case.

To request a tier change, contact our Support team.

Note: After modifying the tier, the updated retention window takes effect starting from the next deployment. Contentstack does not retroactively adjust previously retained deployments.

Performing a Rollback

To perform a rollback, follow the steps below:

1. On your Deployments screen, click Rollback Deployment.
2. In the modal that appears, select an eligible previous deployment and click Review Rollback. 
3. You can enter the reason for rollback, if any. Then click Confirm & Roll Back to proceed with the rollback. 

You can find the rollback details as shown below:

• Deployment History 
• Current Deployment 
• Rolled Back Deployment 

What Happens During Rollback

• Your application is restored to a previous working version: The selected deployment becomes the active version of your site.
• The current version is preserved: The version you were using is not lost and can be accessed again if needed.
• Traffic is redirected promptly: Users start seeing the restored version within seconds.
• Cached content is refreshed: Any cached content is updated to ensure users see the correct version.

Note: Auto-deployments triggered by commits, webhooks, or automations continue to run during a rollback. We recommend disabling them before you begin to avoid unintended deployments.

Failure Handling

The rollback process includes the following safeguards:

• If the selected deployment is not eligible, the rollback does not start:
  This prevents switching to an invalid or incomplete version.
• If something goes wrong during rollback, your site remains stable:
  Launch ensures that your application continues serving a consistent version and avoids partial or broken states.