Set Up Preview Deployments

Preview deployments create a temporary environment for every non-production branch, giving you a live URL to review changes before merging.

Enable preview environments

Preview deployments are controlled at the project level.

1. Open your project in the dashboard
2. Go to Settings
3. Find Preview Environments and toggle it on
4. Click Save

Once enabled, any push to a branch that is not the project's main branch (usually main or master) will automatically create a preview environment and deploy to it.

How preview branches work

When a push arrives on a non-main branch:

1. Temps checks if a preview environment already exists for that branch
2. If not, it creates one — the environment is named after the branch (e.g. feature/login becomes the feature-login environment)
3. The application is built and deployed to that environment
4. A unique URL is generated for the preview

If the branch is pushed again, Temps redeploys to the same preview environment rather than creating a new one. If a previously deleted branch is pushed again, Temps restores the soft-deleted environment.

Preview URLs

Preview deployments get URLs in the format:

https://{project-slug}-{environment-slug}.{preview-domain}

For example, if your project is my-app and the branch is feature/login, the preview URL would be:

https://my-app-feature-login.yourdomain.com

Each individual deployment within the preview also gets its own URL:

https://{deployment-slug}.{preview-domain}

These per-deployment URLs let you compare different versions of the same branch.

Control which variables are included

Not all environment variables should be available in preview deployments. For example, you might want to keep production API keys or payment processor credentials out of previews.

Each environment variable has an Include in Preview toggle:

1. Go to your project's Environment Variables page
2. For each variable, check or uncheck Include in Preview
3. Variables with this toggle off will not be injected into preview environments

When creating a new environment variable via the API, set include_in_preview: false to exclude it:

curl -X POST "https://your-temps-instance/api/projects/{project_id}/env-vars" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "key": "STRIPE_SECRET_KEY",
    "value": "sk_live_...",
    "environment_ids": [1],
    "include_in_preview": false
  }'

Access preview URLs

Find the URL for any preview deployment:

1. Open your project in the dashboard
2. Click Environments in the sidebar
3. You will see all environments listed — preview environments are marked with a Preview badge
4. Click on a preview environment to see its URL and deployment history

Alternatively, on the Deployments page, each deployment entry shows its environment name and a direct link to the live URL.

Clean up stale previews

Preview environments accumulate over time as branches are created. To clean them up:

1. Go to Environments in your project
2. Find the preview environment you want to remove
3. Click the Delete button (or use the actions menu)

Deleting a preview environment:

• Stops and removes the running containers
• Soft-deletes the environment record (it can be restored if the same branch is pushed again)
• Does not delete the Git branch

You can also tear down individual deployments without deleting the entire environment. On the Deployments page, use the Teardown action on any deployment to stop its container and free resources while keeping the environment available for future pushes.