Platform updates

A platform update is Divvent's, not yours. From time to time we improve the parts of Divvent that every application is built with. A platform update rebuilds your application on the newer platform at the version it already runs. Your records, pages, flows and permissions are exactly as you approved them, and nothing about what your application does is changed.

Platform updates appear on Releases, each on a card of its own, just under the production card. One that is waiting on you is also on Needs you, with Review the update or Take it now.

There are two kinds: standard and urgent.

Standard updates

Most updates are standard. A standard update has a 14-day window. During it, the card shows Waiting for you · 9 days left (or however many are left), and you can:

• Take it now. For production, type prod in the box and press Take it now. For a test copy it is a click. It is applied on the next run.
• Put it off. Press Put it off until its window ends. You can do this once. The card then shows Scheduled with the date it will be applied, and Take it now stays there if you change your mind.
• Leave it. You don't have to do anything at all.

When the window ends, the update is applied on its own. You aren't asked again, and it can't be put off any further.

Only an owner or an admin can decide about an update to production. An editor can decide about one to a test copy.

The quiet hour

An update applied at the end of its window goes in at your application's quiet hour: the hour of the day when your application is least used, worked out from its own traffic in its own time zone. Until your application has enough traffic to choose from, it is 03:00 in your application's time zone. The card says the exact time and which of these it used, for example "03:00 in Europe/London, the quietest hour of your application's own traffic".

Urgent updates

An urgent update is for something that can't wait, usually a security fix. It is applied to your application straight away, and you are told afterwards. Its card is headed Urgent platform update, says why it was needed, and shows In progress, Done or Failed.

You can't put off or withdraw an urgent update. While one is being applied, you can't release, promote or roll back there. The card says so, and those are offered again once it has finished. If one fails, our team is on it.

An update that needs your approval

Very occasionally, an update includes a step that changes how your data is stored in a way that can't be undone by putting the old code back. That kind of update is not applied on its own. It waits for a yes, just as a change of yours would, on a card showing Waiting for you that lists the steps.

To approve it for production, type prod and press Approve the platform update. Only an owner can approve one for production. If the step goes further than your account approves for itself, the card says someone on our team approves it instead, and the update goes ahead once they have.

Checked before it reaches production

Before an update reaches your production application, Divvent rehearses it. We release it to a copy of your application that nobody can reach, and run your application's own checks and tests there on made-up data. Nothing changes on your application until the rehearsal passes. The update's card says when it was rehearsed and what passed. If a rehearsal doesn't pass, nothing changes on your application, and our team looks at it.

Where an application keeps sensitive kinds of records, such as health or children's details, its owner is asked once, in Settings, whether the rehearsal may also use a sealed copy of the live data, deleted straight after. The two answers are Allow a sealed copy of our live data and Use made-up data only. You can change the answer later.

After the rehearsal, the update is released the way any release is: checked before it goes live and watched after. See Release a version.

Rolling back after an update

A standard update doesn't take away your rollback. Roll back after one still undoes your own last change, to the version it replaced. See Roll back a release.

An urgent update can only be rolled back by our team, because rolling it back would bring back what it fixed. If going back would put back a version from before one, the production card says so. Ask us.

In the history

Every platform update is a line in History on Releases, for example "Platform update of production, at 0.5.0", with the version it was rebuilt at, how it went, and for an urgent one, why it was needed.