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Feature: Preview Deployments

Purpose​

  • Feature name: Preview deployments
  • Why this feature exists: Give reviewers a safe environment to validate changes before production.

Scope​

In scope​

  • automatic preview deployments on PRs
  • environment-scoped public URLs

Out of scope​

  • staging promotion workflow
  • production rollbacks

Prereqs / Inputs​

  • Vercel connected to the repo
  • GitHub Actions checks configured

Procedure / Content​

Feature summary​

  • Feature name: Preview deployments
  • Feature group: CI/CD and environment promotion
  • Technical summary: PR branches deploy to preview environments with Vercel-managed URLs.
  • Low-tech summary: Every PR gets a temporary site to review.

Feature in action​

  • Where to see it working: Open any PR and review the Vercel preview URL.

Confirmation Process​

Manual​

  • Steps: Open a PR, click the preview URL, and validate core routes.
  • What to look for: Preview site renders correctly and matches the PR changes.
  • Artifacts or reports to inspect: Vercel deployment status and GitHub check results.

Tests​

Potential behavior if broken or misconfigured​

  • Preview deployments fail to build.
  • Preview URL is missing or inaccessible.

Long-term maintenance notes​

  • Keep preview checks aligned with CI gates.
  • Validate environment variables are scoped correctly.

Dependencies, libraries, tools​

  • Vercel
  • GitHub Actions

Source code references (GitHub URLs)​

ADRs​

Runbooks​

Additional internal references​

Validation / Expected outcomes​

  • Preview deployments are available for every PR.

Failure modes / Troubleshooting​

  • Missing previews: verify Vercel integration and build logs.

References​

  • None.