How to manage a Bubble app lifecycle

Managing a Bubble app lifecycle means controlling how your app moves from development to live, how you test changes safely, how you handle deployments, and how you maintain data, workflows, and privacy across environments.

Core Idea of Bubble’s App Lifecycle

Bubble has two environments: Development (where you build and test) and Live (what real users see). You edit everything in Development, then you click “Deploy development to live” when you’re confident the new version is stable. Data stays separate unless you manually copy it.

• Development = building, testing, breaking things safely.
• Live = real users, real data, stability is critical.

How to Manage the Lifecycle Step-by-Step

Start in Development: Build pages, workflows, backend workflows, API calls, privacy rules, and database structure. Always test your features using Preview so you don’t affect real users.

• Use Dev database as a sandbox. Create fake users and dummy data.
• Test backend workflows by triggering them manually or from temporary buttons.

Protect your data with Privacy Rules: Set privacy rules so different user roles only see the data they should. Privacy rules apply to both Development and Live, so it’s important to get them right early.

• Check with “Run as…” to simulate different users.

Prepare for deployment: Before deploying, ensure no broken workflows or missing fields. Use the Issue Checker to catch errors.

• Confirm database fields exist everywhere your workflows expect them.
• Check API Connector because credentials may differ between Dev and Live.

Deploy to Live: Click Deploy Development to Live. This moves your editor changes to Live but does not copy data. The Live database stays separate.

• If you need real sample data, use “Copy Dev database to Live” or the reverse.

Maintain after launch: Keep building new features in Development. Fix bugs there first. Test thoroughly. Deploy again only when ready.

• Use Version control backups in Bubble for safety.
• Document data types, fields, scheduled backend workflows.

Example: How You Test a Feature Before Launch

You add a “Cancel Subscription” workflow using Stripe. Test it entirely in Development using your Stripe test keys. After confirming it works, switch the API Connector to Live keys, then deploy.

// Stripe call example in API Connector (pseudo-body)
{
 "customer": "<customer_id>",
 "cancel_at_period_end": true
}

This way, no real user gets affected until you're 100% confident.