Customers talk to the published version of a project, never the draft. Publishing turns your draft into the new published version, and a fresh draft takes its place for your next changes. See Flows.
Draft and published
Every project has a draft. After the first publish, it also has a published version.
| Version | Chip | What you can do |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | Editing | Edit everything. Tests from the designer run against it. |
| Published | Live | View only. A banner shows the version number and the publish date. |
Use the Draft / Published switch in the header to change which version you are looking at. Published is disabled until the project is published for the first time.
A new project starts at version 1. When you publish, the draft becomes the published version and a new draft is created, numbered one higher. Publishing version 1, for example, gives you published version 1 and draft version 2.
Publishing a project
You need the Projects > Publish permission.
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Select Publish from the project card menu, or from the designer's toolbar menu.
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In the Publish Changes dialog, choose the channels and services the published version will use. The draft's own selection is shown for reference.
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Set Graceful Publish:
- On: ongoing conversations carry on unaffected, and the changes apply to new sessions.
- Off: publishing ends ongoing conversations. The dialog asks you to confirm.
The switch starts at the value saved for the project.
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Select Publish. A notification confirms when publishing has finished.
⚠️ Warning: With Graceful Publish off, every conversation in progress ends when you publish. Leave it on unless you need the change to apply to everyone at once.
What stops a publish
| Cause | What to do |
|---|---|
| A flow fails its checks | Fix the nodes marked invalid. See Designing a Flow. |
| An integration has missing required fields | Fill in the integration's required fields. See Service Integrations. |
| Real-Time Translation is on, and no Translation or Text-Language Detection service is selected | Publish stays disabled until you select both services for the published version. See Real-Time Translation. |
Earlier versions
There is no version history list, no rollback and no way to delete a version. You can reach only the draft and the latest published version. The platform keeps the five newest versions and removes older ones.
💡 Tip: To keep a copy of what you are about to publish, export the project just before publishing. Export always takes the current draft. Importing that file later gives you a new project, not a restored version.
Exporting a project
You need the Projects > Import - Export permission.
- Select Export from the project card menu.
- The export runs in the background. A notification brings the download link.
Export always takes the current draft.
| Carried | Not carried |
|---|---|
| Flows and variables | Integration settings |
| Virtual agents | MCP and Knowledge Retrieval tools |
| AI agents | Guardrails |
| Channel and service integration entries, without their settings | Analytics settings |
| Confirmation phrases, custom data and project entities | Knowledge bases |
| System messages and outbound rules | |
| AI insights | |
| Languages, and the Survey and Post Session Flow switches |
Selections that belong to one environment are cleared from these nodes:
| Node | Cleared |
|---|---|
| Ask LLM, Virtual Agent | LLM configuration, model and reasoning effort |
| RAG Agent | LLM configuration, model and reasoning effort; knowledge base and tags |
| Knowledge Retrieval | Knowledge base and tags |
| Data Table | All of its inputs |
| MCP Headers | The MCP server |
Importing a project
- On the Projects page, use the Import card and choose a .json or .zip file.
- The import runs in the background. A notification tells you when it has finished.
- Open each integration the project uses and check its settings.
- Open each node marked invalid and select its cleared inputs again.
- Recreate anything the export does not carry, such as guardrails, knowledge bases, and MCP and Knowledge Retrieval tools.
Import always creates a new project, starting at version 1. If the name is already taken, _Copy is added to it.
Limits
| Item | Limit |
|---|---|
| Import file size | 256 MB |
| Versions kept | The 5 newest |