# Release Management
Attaché provides a few tools for managing the releases on the server. You may have realized that during deployment, a new release is placed in the releases directory leaving any previous releases completely intact. You can interact with these releases using the commands under the attache releases namespace.
# Getting a list of releases
The first thing you'll probably want to do is see a list of releases currently sitting on your server. You can do so using the releases:list command. Pass in a server name as the first argument if you need to, otherwise the default server config applies here too.
attache releases:list
// or...
attache releases:list production
This will return a table of releases, their IDs, the date of release, and if the release is active. Output should look a little like:
---------------- --------------------- ------------
ID Release Date
---------------- --------------------- ------------
20200317111232 17 March 2020 11:12
20200317115727 17 March 2020 11:57 <-- active
---------------- --------------------- ------------
There are two releases here and the most recent one is currently active.
# Rollback
We all like to think we're amazing at our jobs, but we all screw up every now and again. Sometimes, those mistakes make their way into production. It's not great and it's usually a scramble to get the previous version back online. Attaché provides a simple releases:rollback command that will reactivate the previous release.
attache releases:rollback production
If you had to run a releases:list command after a rollback, you'll see that the previous release is now active.
---------------- --------------------- ------------
ID Release Date
---------------- --------------------- ------------
20200317111232 17 March 2020 11:12 <-- active
20200317115727 17 March 2020 11:57
---------------- --------------------- ------------
# Activate a specific release
Similar to the rollback command, you can specify a release ID to activate. Simply provide the ID of the release. If you need to specify a server name, put the name after the release ID:
attache releases:activate 20200317115727 production
In addition, if you ever need to simply activate the most recent release again, you can replace the release ID with the keyword latest.
attache releases:activate latest production
# Pruning old releases
Leaving releases to sit on the server indefinitely will quickly eat up valuable disk space. Each release could be massive. It's a good idea to keep the number of releases on the server to a bare minimum. Attaché's bare minimum is 2. You can quickly remove old releases from the server using the releases:prune command. This will remove all the old releases except the most recent 2.
attache releases:prune
Pruning is a desctructive action, so Attaché will confirm with you before deleting anything from the server. You can also specify the number of releases to prune by using the --count option and giving it a number to remove. If you give a higher number than there are releases, Attaché will always leave the most recent two.
attache releases:prune production --count=5
You can also prune releases automatically during deployment by using the --prune option of the deploy command.
attache deploy production --prune
Note
Note that you can never prune the current active release. Attaché will not allow a prune to complete if the active release would be removed.
# Up and Down
Laravel's Artisan command line tool provides plenty of power and is an essential part of any Laravel application. Attaché provides access to just two of artisan's commands: up and down. This is just for convenience sake and allows you to take the currently active release offline or online.
# Offline
attache releases:down production
# Online
attache releases:up production