---
title: Atomic Deployments
description: Zero-downtime deployments with automatic rollback for Skipper and Admiral users.
---

<Note>
  Atomic Deployments require a **Sencho Skipper** or **Admiral** license. Community Edition uses standard deployments without backup or rollback.
</Note>

Sencho wraps every deployment in a safety net on Skipper and Admiral tiers. Before applying changes, it backs up your current configuration. If the deployment fails, it automatically rolls back to the previous working state.

## How it works

1. **Backup** - Before a deploy or update, Sencho copies your `compose.yaml` and `.env` files to a safe internal location
2. **Deploy** - Sencho runs the requested compose operation (up, pull + recreate, etc.)
3. **Health probe** - After deployment, Sencho waits briefly, then checks whether any containers exited with a non-zero exit code
4. **Auto-rollback** - If a crash is detected, Sencho restores the backed-up files and re-deploys automatically

This entire sequence happens transparently. You see a single deploy action; Sencho handles the safety logic behind the scenes.

## Which operations are protected

Atomic deployments apply to:

- **Deploy** from the stack editor (compose down + up)
- **Update** from the stack editor (pull latest images + recreate)
- **Webhook triggers** for deploy and pull actions
- **Scheduled tasks** that perform deploys or updates
- **App Store installs** when deploying a new stack

## Manual rollback

You can manually roll back to the previous deployment at any time by clicking the **Rollback** button in the stack editor's action bar. The button only appears when a backup exists from a prior deployment.

Hover over the Rollback button to see a tooltip with the timestamp of the last backup. Clicking it restores the backed-up `compose.yaml` and `.env` files, then re-deploys the stack with the restored configuration.

## Community Edition behavior

Community users continue to use the standard deploy flow: no backup is created and no rollback is available. Upgrading to Skipper or Admiral enables atomic deployments immediately with no configuration required.
