# Alchemist: Releases, the Deploy Gate, and Rollback

How finished work goes live on Alchemist: the deploy gate's Continuous, Manual, and Scheduled modes, release-candidate QA, release notes, and one-step rollback.

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Merging work and putting it live are two separate steps. The agent merges
finished work into your project's default branch; the **deploy gate** decides
when that work reaches your live app. This page covers the gate, the checks you
can put in front of a release, and how to undo one.

## The deploy gate

Open your project's **Releases** tab and find the **Deploy gate** panel. It has three modes:

| Mode | What happens to merged work |
| --- | --- |
| **Continuous** | Each merge is built and goes live as soon as the build finishes. |
| **Manual** | Merges keep landing and are built, but nothing goes live until someone clicks **Deploy now**. |
| **Scheduled** | Merged work is released on a cadence you set: every N hours, or at set times of day in your timezone. |

New projects start in **Manual**. The project's first deploy still goes out on
its own so the app comes up, but every release after that waits for a person.
A daily release digest lists what is waiting.

The panel shows what is pending, along with release notes generated from the
changes since the last release, so whoever clicks **Deploy now** can see what
they are shipping.

## Release-candidate QA

When work is waiting to go live, the platform cuts a **release candidate**: a
fixed snapshot of exactly what would ship. A QA agent can check that candidate
and write a report (use **Start QA** or **Re-run QA** in the
**Release-candidate QA** panel). The Deploy gate panel's **What the QA agent
will check** list shows the steps drafted from the pending changes.

Under **Quality gate** you choose how much weight the report carries:

- **Advisory (default):** the report is there to read; it never blocks a release.
- **Require a passing QA verdict to release:** a release needs the current candidate's QA to have
  passed. **Deploy now** can still override a failed or missing pass, and every
  override is recorded in the audit trail.
- **Auto-release when QA passes:** in Manual or Scheduled mode, a
  passing QA releases the work on its own, optionally after a soak period of up
  to 24 hours (1,440 minutes).

> **Note:** The quality gate checks the QA agent's verdict. It does not run your own test
> suite: the platform build compiles and type-checks your code, but does not run
> your tests. If your app has a test suite that must pass before a release, run it
> on every change (for example in a ticket's acceptance check or your own CI) and
> keep the gate in Manual mode so releases only go out after it passes.

## Rolling back

The **Roll back** panel lists earlier completed deploys. Rolling back puts a
previous deploy's already-built image back live. Nothing is rebuilt, so it takes
about as long as any rollout.

A rollback also **pins** the project. New work keeps merging, but none of it
goes live until you click **Resume deploys**, so the next merge can't quietly
re-ship the change you just rolled back. Resuming can also release anything
that was held while the project was pinned. Rollbacks, pins, and resumes all
appear in the panel's **Audit trail**.

A rollback restores code, not data. Database changes and uploaded files are not
reverted. See [Runtime, Data, and Regions](/docs/guides/alchemist-runtime-and-data)
for how data is backed up.

## Related reading

- [Deploys and Domains](/docs/guides/alchemist-deploys-and-domains)
- [Runtime, Data, and Regions](/docs/guides/alchemist-runtime-and-data)