Publishing is the process of deploying, or setting live, the changes you’ve made in your Xano backend—such as updates to APIs, custom functions, tasks, or AI tools—so they become active in your live environment.

Why Publishing Matters

Xano allows you to safely develop and test changes without immediately affecting production.
Publishing ensures that:
  • New logic Any changes you’ve made are available to your live applications.
  • Branching workflows remain controlled, with merges and releases handled intentionally.

How Publishing Works

  1. (RECOMMENDED) Develop in a Branch
    Make changes in a branch or in the working environment without altering the live version of your API. While branches are not required, they are recommended to help you manage your changes and avoid conflicts. Read more about Branching & Merging.
  2. Test Your Changes
    Use the built-in debugger to verify your logic is working as expected.
  3. Build or Update Tests
    Build or update tests for your changes using Unit Tests and Test Suites.
  4. Publish
    When ready, click Publish in the top-right corner of the visual builder for the logic stack you want to apply the changes to.

Publishing Steps

  1. Open the logic stack where your changes live.
  2. Click the Publish button (upper right).
  3. Xano deploys the updated logic to the current branch.

Best Practices

  • Review Change Sets
    Before publishing, review what’s changed—especially when collaborating on a team—to avoid unexpected releases.
  • Coordinate with Branching
    If you’re using Branching & Merging, ensure that your branch is fully merged and tested before publishing.
  • Communicate with Your Team
    Notify other team members of upcoming publishes to avoid merge conflicts or duplicate deployments.
  • Version Your API
    If the changes are breaking, consider using API versioning or a new endpoint group to prevent downtime for your users.


💡 Tip: Publishing is irreversible for that version—if you need to roll back, create a new branch from a previous commit and re-publish.