Going Live on Craft Cloud
Craft Cloud’s infrastructure is always ready for an influx of traffic—but there are still things that you can do to make launch day go more smoothly!
Preparation #
Make sure you have access to your domain’s DNS management tool well in advance of launch. We recommend using a DNS provider that supports CNAME flattening—but it’s not a requirement to connect a domain at Cloud.
Domain Validation #
This is typically the most volatile part of connecting a domain to Cloud—so make sure you’ve started the process by adding the validation records to your DNS provider as soon as you know where the site will live. Don’t worry—validating a domain won't automatically send traffic to Cloud!
TTL #
A few days before going live, consider lowering the TTL on key DNS records to ~300 seconds (five minutes). In most cases, that would be your root domain’s A records—but it could also be a subdomain’s CNAME record. Check out our domains article for more information about what you’ll be asked to update.
This gives downstream providers’ caches time to expire, at which point they will re-fetch those records with the new (shorter) TTL—meaning subsequent updates will take less time to be picked up.
Cutting Over #
When it’s time to flip the switch, you’ll need to do two things:
- Promote your environment to production by selecting it in the project’s Settings screen. This signals to Cloud that the function should be kept warm by the platform so there’s no delay when the first request comes in.
- Update your domains’ DNS records. Any domains (or subdomains) that should point to your production environment will require changes.
Deployments #
Chances are, you’ve been iterating and deploying changes frequently over the course of development. Now that the site is publicly accessible, make sure the deployment trigger in your environment’s Settings screen agrees with your team’s desired workflow.
Staging Environment #
If you would like to continue testing and previewing changes with your team (before deploying them to production), consider setting up a second “staging” environment—your Cloud project subscription includes three environments to use however you like!