---
title: "Lifecycle & environments"
description: ""
url: "https://sotaagents.ai/manual/developer-guide/lifecycle-and-environments"
generated_by: "sotaagents-ldp"
docs_index: "https://sotaagents.ai/manual/llms.txt"
locale: "en"
---

# Lifecycle & environments

![Lifecycle diagram: a development session becomes an immutable Staging artifact, which sota release promotes unchanged to Production, with separate data partitions and independent visibility](/manual/assets/developer/app-lifecycle.svg?v=2)
_Development is a personal live session — local UI and backend, one selected workspace, no immutable artifact. `sota deploy` packs the Staging artifact; `sota release` promotes that exact artifact to Production. Data partitions stay separate, and visibility is managed independently._

![App Registry lifecycle view with Staging, Production, and App Store status](/manual/assets/developer/app-registry-lifecycle.webp)
_App Registry shows the exact Staging and Production versions. App Store listing is a separate Production governance state._