> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.slipway.sh/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Lifecycle

> Environment and instance states, TTLs, refresh, and teardown.

## States

Environments and instances share one status:

```
creating     → row exists, no deploy yet
deploying    → one or more components in flight
healthy      → every component is healthy (TTL clock starts here)
degraded     → at least one component failed, but others keep serving
failed       → every component failed on first deploy
tearing_down → teardown in progress
torn_down    → gone; the row stays for history
```

`degraded` is soft — redeploying the failing component flips it back to `healthy`.

## Primary instance

New environments enable the primary by default, and deploy it as soon as they're created — both from **Deploy a repo** and from the composer (untick it there for a definition-only environment). With the primary off, an environment is a pure definition — it runs nothing until a PR spawns a preview or you press **Deploy now**. Turning the primary on later (**Enable primary** on the Deployments tab) brings up an always-on instance at the tracked refs immediately; turning it off tears it down. The primary is the one instance with no TTL — it stays up until you disable it. Each deploy first syncs it from the definition, so composition, variable, and domain edits ship on the next deploy.

## PR previews

```
PR opened       → spawn an instance and deploy
PR synchronized → redeploy the PR's component only (siblings stay frozen)
PR closed       → tear the instance down
```

The PR's component runs at its branch; siblings are pinned to the commit they spawned with, so a preview is reproducible. If a sibling's branch has moved on and you want the preview to pick it up, use **Refresh** (below).

## Dev instances

A [dev instance](/cli/dev-instances) is a full copy of an environment spun up from `sw dev up` to test a branch. It's tied to the CLI session: the CLI heartbeats to keep it alive, <kbd>Ctrl-C</kbd> tears it down, and if the CLI dies it's reaped within a few minutes. A hard cap (8 hours) limits it regardless.

## Manual instances

A manual instance (**Deploy now**) is a disposable copy at the latest tracked commits. Pushes don't touch it — use its **Deploy latest** to re-resolve every ref to HEAD and pull the environment's current variables and secrets. It expires on a one-shot TTL (the plan's deployment TTL, or 24 hours if the plan has none).

## TTL

An environment's TTL comes from your [plan](/organization/plans), not the composer. The clock starts at `healthy`, so build time doesn't eat your window. PR previews inherit the environment's TTL; the primary has none; dev instances use a short rolling window refreshed by the CLI.

## Refresh

**Refresh** on an instance re-resolves every sibling component (not the PR's own) to the parent environment's current tracked-ref HEAD and redeploys them. Use it when a sibling's `main` has moved on since the PR opened.

## Teardown

**Teardown** supersedes every in-flight component deploy and removes the instance. The row and its log stay for history. Tearing down a base environment doesn't cascade to its active PR previews — close the PRs (or tear down each instance) to remove those.