# Publishing

Publishing with CodeWords is a fast, conversational process. You do not need to manage servers, deployment pipelines, or hosting configuration manually.

\
When you are ready, you tell Cody to go live, and Cody handles the production deployment flow for you.

### The publishing process

1. **Finish and test in preview:** Use the in-product preview to click through the app, forms, and navigation.
2. **Tell Cody you are ready to go live:** When you want to publish, say so in chat or click the publish button.
3. **CodeWords handles it**: CodeWords runs the deployment process for you, including:

* Provisioning hosting for your live app at **your-name.codewords.run** on cloud.
* Building and deploying a production-ready version of what you shipped from chat.
* Serving it over HTTPS on that managed URL, without you configuring certificates for the default domain.
* Configuring DNS for custom domains by telling you exactly which records to add and confirming when they propagate

In most cases your app is live within minutes. Updates work the same way as building: tell Cody what to change, check the preview, then go live again when you are ready.

### Custom Domains

You can connect a custom domain so your app is available at something like `app.yourbrand.com` instead of only `*.codewords.run`.

#### Connecting your domain

Tell Cody which domain you want to use, for example:\
“Publish this to my domain, app.mycompany.com.”

Cody will provide the DNS record to add at your domain provider (such as GoDaddy, Cloudflare, or Namecheap).

Typical records:

For a subdomain (for example `app.mycompany.com`):

* Type: `CNAME`
* Name: `app`
* Value: `cname.vercel-dns.com`

For a root domain (for example `mycompany.com`):

* Type: `A`
* Name: `@`
* Value: Cody will provide the exact value to use.

After you add the DNS record, tell Cody and Cody will verify the connection.\
DNS usually updates in minutes, but in some cases can take up to 48 hours.

#### Automatic SSL / HTTPS

SSL is provisioned automatically once your custom domain is connected.\
Traffic is encrypted by default. There is nothing extra to configure.

#### Updating a live app

Publishing is not the end of editing.\
Describe the changes you want, review them in preview, then publish the updated version.\
There is no separate redeploy workflow outside that same preview → publish loop.<br>


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