---
title: "Deploy Staging"
description: "The browser cannot safely or reproducibly load source files from a developer laptop. Deployment turns the declared app surface into immutable, content-addressed bytes that every…"
url: "https://sotaagents.ai/manual/developer-guide/deploy-staging"
generated_by: "sotaagents-ldp"
docs_index: "https://sotaagents.ai/manual/llms.txt"
locale: "en"
---

# Deploy Staging

The browser cannot safely or reproducibly load source files from a developer laptop. Deployment turns the declared app surface into immutable, content-addressed bytes that every screen, tool-result renderer, locale loader, and artifact consumer can resolve in the same way.

![Diagram of source files becoming an immutable SotaAgents artifact](/manual/assets/developer/bundle-pipeline.svg?v=2)
_The uploaded artifact contains package assets and the resolved definition. Your live backend, database contents, secrets, and operational data stay outside it._

Terminal

```
sota validate
sota deploy --dry-run
sota deploy --description "Add grounded search results"
sota status
```

Deploy compiles and packs deterministic bytes, uploads them, and asks Core to validate the authoritative definition. The shared Staging pointer moves to that artifact; Production remains unchanged.

> [!WARNING]
> Versions are immutable.
>
> Deploying different bytes with an already-used version fails with `VERSION_IMMUTABLE_CONFLICT`. Increment `version`; do not overwrite history. If a change is intentionally breaking, use the explicit acknowledgement and migration declaration required by the CLI.

To test Staging, install and enable the exact Staging environment in the target organization/workspace. The tester must also be the app owner or a contributor and an active workspace member.