This page explains how to create and management deployments for your
Google Chat app. By maintaining different deployments, you can
better manage each phase of your Chat app's lifecycle
and safely release changes to production.

## Create deployments for each phase of the app lifecycle

To manage your Chat app throughout its lifecycle, we
recommend that you create and deploy a Chat app for
each of the following environments:

- **Development:** The environment that you use to work on changes. If needed, you can use the head deployment or run this environment locally.
- **Staging:** The environment that you deploy to trusted testers for end-to-end testing. This environment should be as close to production as possible.
- **Production:** The environment that you deploy to end users by [publishing
  your Chat app to the
  Google Workspace Marketplace](https://developers.google.com/workspace/marketplace/how-to-publish).

For each Chat app that you deploy, you must create a
Google Cloud project. When you configure the Chat API in each
Cloud project, consider using a distinct app name, avatar URL, and
description so that you can better distinguish between the
Chat apps in Google Chat.

In the following example, the Chat app
called `Task app` is built on HTTP and uses different endpoints to deploy to
development, staging, and production:

| Environment | Cloud project name | App name | HTTP endpoint URL |
|---|---|---|---|
| Development | `task-chat-app-dev` | Dev Task app | `http://example.com/api/myapp/head` |
| Staging | `task-chat-app-staging` | Staging Task app | `http://example.com/api/myapp/staging` |
| Production | `task-chat-app` | Task app | `http://example.com/api/myapp/` |

### Manage deployments based on your Chat app architecture

The following table includes additional considerations when managing deployments
for specific [Chat app
architectures](https://developers.google.com/workspace/chat/structure):

| Architecture | Deployment format | Considerations |
|---|---|---|
| HTTP | HTTP endpoint URL | - Deploy changes progressively to each endpoint in your Chat app's lifecycle. For example, after you've tested a new feature deployed in your staging endpoint `http://example.com/api/myapp/staging`, release the feature to production by deploying it to your production endpoint, such as `http://example.com/api/myapp`. - To debug code before deploying, you can set an endpoint to your local environment. To learn how to test changes locally, see [Debug Google Chat apps](https://developers.google.com/chat/troubleshoot/debug). |
| Google Apps Script | Deployment ID | - Apps Script projects can only have a single branch and be associated with one Cloud project. To test changes and maintain multiple environments, you must create different Apps Script projects for each environment. - You should only use the Apps Script project's head deployment for the development environment. For staging and production environments, use versioned deployments. For details, see [Create and manage deployments](https://developers.google.com/apps-script/concepts/deployments) in the Apps Script documentation. |
| Pub/Sub | Pub/Sub topic | You should use a different Pub/Sub topic for each deployment. |

## Related topics

- [Test interactive features for Google Chat apps](https://developers.google.com/workspace/chat/test-interactive-features)
- [Create and manage Apps Script deployments](https://developers.google.com/apps-script/concepts/deployments)
- [Choose a Chat app architecture](https://developers.google.com/workspace/chat/structure)