Introduction to Syncing & Publishing

CloudCannon uses a technology called Git. Git safely stores your website files, lets you revert to previous versions of your Site (in case something goes wrong), allows you to maintain multiple copies of your Site, and tracks who made which changes and when. Most of the Git side of CloudCannon is managed by your developer, but it's important to know some Git terms for updating content, too.

• Syncing is when CloudCannon automatically synchronizes the content of your website stored in your Git Repository (the safe place where your developer stores your website files) and your Site on CloudCannon. This means that any changes made to your website are reflected in both places: whether it's a content update in CloudCannon or a code change by a developer.
• Publishing is when CloudCannon publishes changes from one copy of your website to another, allowing you to test your content updates on a dedicated copy of your website before they go public.

In the Syncing & Publishing section of our User documentation, we cover:

• Syncing Paused — Learn how CloudCannon protects your unsaved changes when someone saves changes to the same file
• Branching — Learn how you can work on a Branch (your own copy of your website), and update the Publish Branch (the main copy of your website)
• Publishing Conflicts — Learn how CloudCannon protects the saved changes on your Branch when they conflict with changes from your Publish Branch

Let's briefly introduce a few of these topics.

Syncing Paused#

Sometimes, CloudCannon may pause syncing while you have unsaved changes on your Site. This is to protect your unsaved changes from incoming changes made by other people. You can easily resolve this by saving your unsaved changes.

For a more in-depth explanation of syncing paused, please read our documentation:

• Why is syncing paused?
• Resume syncing

Branching#

If your developer has added a publishing workflow to your Site, everyone can work on their own copy of your website, called a Branch. While editing on your Branch, you don't need to worry about your changes going live: only you and anyone you share the link with will see your Site.

When you are ready for these changes to go live, you can publish to the main copy of your website, called a Publish Branch. Also, if anyone else updates your main Branch from another copy of your Site, you can easily update your copy of the website from the Publish Branch.

For a more in-depth explanation of branching, please read our documentation:

• What is a Publish Branch?
• Update from a Publish Branch

Publishing Conflicts#

Sometimes, when you try to update from your Publish Branch, CloudCannon will warn you about a Publishing Conflict. This happens when the saved changes on your Branch and the saved changes to the same file on your Publish Branch are different. CloudCannon will help you resolve this conflict by allowing you to choose which changes to keep, preventing one set of changes from overwriting the other.

For a more in-depth explanation of publishing conflicts, please read our documentation:

• What are publishing conflicts?
• Resolve publishing conflicts