Version and publish workflows
Learn how to publish and manage workflows that run automatically.
You must publish a workflow before it can run automatically using a schedule or with webhooks. The Workflow IDE automatically saves changes to your workflow but you must publish them to take effect. This allows you to build a new workflow, or make changes to an existing one, without disruption.
When you publish a workflow, Retool creates a versioned release. Each release of a workflow has its own version number and reflects the workflow's state at that specific point in time. Only the published version is used by Retool. This allows you to safely test and build changes without disruption.
Any changes you make to a Retool workflow are automatically saved to the current working version. This version contains any changes that have not yet been published.
Publish a workflow release
Click Publish release in the toolbar to create and publish a new version of the workflow. Retool uses Semantic Versioning and automatically increments the version number based on your selection of Major, Minor, or Patch versioning.
For protected workflows, create a new release from the Releases tab in the left-hand menu.
If your workflow calls another workflow using a Workflow block, you can also choose to publish changes to the referenced workflow.
Manage releases
The Releases tab contains a list of every published version of a workflow. The currently published version includes a Live tag.
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| Version number | The version number (e.g., 1.0.2). |
| Description | The description of the version. |
| Author | The Retool user who published the version. |
| Publish date | When the version was last published. |
Preview a release
From the Releases tab, click the ••• menu and select Preview release to preview it in the Workflow IDE.
Publish an existing release
You can publish an existing version of a workflow at any time. Open the ••• menu for the version to publish, then select Publish release.
If you want to remove any releases and are certain they are no longer needed, you can also delete them permanently.
Revert to a previous release
You can revert the current working version of your app to the state from a previous version. All changes since this version are discarded but still remain in the history. This does not affect any other releases and doesn't change the published release.
This is useful if you've made a series of changes in the current working version but want to revert the app to an earlier point.