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Changelog

What shipped

Every feature, fix, and improvement we’ve shipped. PreviewDrop is in active development — entries land here as the work goes out.

v1.11October 26, 2026

Pull request previews are back on every code host

  • PR previews work on GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket again. Since v1.10 the PR link step no longer leaves deployments stuck in queued, and this release closes the remaining gap on GitLab and Bitbucket: a merge request or PR now builds, receives the preview URL as a comment, updates in place on each push, and tears down when it closes.
  • A clearer failure reason when a build never starts. If the build step cannot start the container, the deployment is marked failed with the reason shown in the dashboard instead of sitting in queued and counting against your concurrent-preview limit.
  • Django previews need less setup. The four settings that most often break a Django preview — ALLOWED_HOSTS, CSRF_TRUSTED_ORIGINS, static file serving under gunicorn, and migrations on boot — are documented with copy-pasteable snippets: on the blog.
  • Plan limits are unchanged. Free is still 2 concurrent previews with a 4-hour lifetime; Starter ($19) is 5 concurrent with 24 hours; Pro ($79) adds password-protected previews and custom preview domains.
v1.10September 24, 2026

Pull request previews work again

  • PR previews are fixed (broken since May 12). Opening or pushing to a pull request on GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket did not produce a preview: the step that links a deployment to its PR was rejected by the database, and each failure left a deployment stuck in queued that counted toward the workspace's concurrent-preview limit. Pull requests now build, post the preview URL as a comment, update in place on each push and tear down on close. What went wrong, and a check you can run on your own Postgres code: on the blog.
  • A failed PR link can no longer block later previews. If that step fails for any reason, the deployment is marked failed with a reason instead of staying queued.
  • Deleting your account now uninstalls the PreviewDrop GitHub App from your GitHub account or organization. Before, the App stayed installed and kept receiving events.
v1.9September 16, 2026

An MCP server that starts without a key, now in the official registry

  • The MCP server no longer dies at launch without a key. Before this release, npx previewdrop mcp exited on startup if no API key was stored, so editors — including the VS Code extension, which launches it for you — just reported that the server failed to start. It now starts, lists all 14 tools, and any tool call tells you to run npx previewdrop login (or set PREVIEWDROP_API_KEY) and restart the server.
  • previewdrop@0.1.12 is on npm. It carries the startup fix above, and the version it reports to the API is now read from the package itself instead of a hardcoded older number.
  • Listed in the official MCP registry as dev.previewdrop/cli. The entry on registry.modelcontextprotocol.io points at previewdrop@0.1.12. Setup for Claude Desktop, Cursor and VS Code is in the MCP docs.
  • A smaller package. The published CLI no longer ships its own compiled test files: 13 files and 57.6 kB unpacked, down from 17 files and 80.9 kB.
  • Builds clone again (fixed 2026-09-02). From about August 1, every repository clone inside the build step failed with git exited with code 128, for both workspace builds and the no-signup demo. Git's HTTP/2 exchange with GitHub was being refused partway through; builds now clone over HTTP/1.1. The full write-up is on the blog.
v1.8September 6, 2026

GitLab previews, connected read-only

  • GitLab.com is live, on every plan. Connect GitLab from Settings → Integrations, then import any project you can see — nested groups included — from the GitLab tab of Connect repo. Push a branch and it builds like a GitHub repo does: same detection, same container, same live URL and expiry.
  • The grant is read-only by default. Connecting asks GitLab for read_api and read_repository only: enough to list projects and branches, clone, and build. Nothing can be written to your GitLab. This is deliberate — a preview tool should not hold write access to your code host just to show you a URL.
  • Automation is a separate, optional step. GitLab has no narrow write scope; creating a webhook or commenting on a merge request requires its api scope. So that is an explicit Enable automation button, not a default. Turn it on and PreviewDrop registers the webhook on each imported project and posts the preview URL on every merge request. Leave it off and you paste one webhook per project by hand — the project's Settings tab shows the URL, secret and triggers — and previews still build on every push.
  • One secret per project. Each imported GitLab project gets its own webhook secret. A delivery is authenticated against that secret and routed to that project, so a leaked secret never reaches another workspace.
  • Honest status in the dashboard. The Integrations card shows Connected · read-only or Connected · automation, the project webhook card says whether the hook is installed or waiting on you, and the docs at /docs/git-integration spell out both levels.
  • Bitbucket Cloud is next. The plumbing is in place; the connection opens once the OAuth consumers are registered.
v1.7August 31, 2026

Previews on your own domain

  • Custom preview domains, on Pro and Team. Previews can now live at prv-a8c2f9.previews.yourcompany.com instead of a PreviewDrop URL. Add your domain in project settings, set three DNS records once — a TXT to prove ownership, a wildcard CNAME for routing, and one CNAME for certificates — and every deploy for that project comes out on your domain. Push, PR, API, and MCP deploys all follow it.
  • Wildcard TLS without handing us your DNS. Certificates are issued by Let's Encrypt through a delegated challenge: the _acme-challenge CNAME points at our zone, so we complete the challenge there and issue a wildcard certificate for your domain — with zero access to your DNS provider, nothing to upload, and renewals handled for you.
  • Verification you can see. The domain card in project settings checks each of the three records individually and shows exactly which one is missing or wrong, so a typo in your DNS panel is a ten-second fix instead of a support ticket.
  • No lock-in by design. Remove the DNS records or the domain and your previews fall back to the default previews.previewdrop.dev URLs on the next deploy. Downgrading plans does the same — nothing breaks, links just come out on the default domain again.
v1.6July 25, 2026

Failed builds now tell you why

  • Every failure gets a cause. When a build fails, PreviewDrop runs 36 diagnostic rules over the build log and stores the result on the deployment — missing Django ALLOWED_HOSTS, an unset NextAuth secret, an unrun Prisma migration, out-of-memory, port already in use, crash loops, and 30 more. The reason shows up in the deployments table, the activity feed, the Slack message, and the PR comment. Previously the product knew that a build broke and never why.
  • Build logs are kept. The log is snapshotted onto the deployment row at the moment of failure, so the evidence is still there when you come back to it tomorrow. Roughly 4 in 10 failed builds used to have no retrievable log at all.
  • Fix-it deep links. When the cause is a missing or wrong environment variable, the failure links straight to that project's Variables tab.
  • Failure-cause breakdown. The dashboard groups your failures by cause, so a project failing 50% of its builds shows you the one rule responsible instead of a wall of red.
  • Referral program actually works. The referral flow had never credited a single account since launch — signups through a referral link were recorded but the bonus project slot was never granted. Fixed, and existing referrals were backfilled.
  • Landing page rendering fixed. A Content-Security-Policy rule was blocking JavaScript and web fonts on the home and pricing pages for a large share of visitors. Both now render as designed.
  • Preview lifetime corrected on pricing. The comparison table understated preview lifetimes by up to 10x. The real numbers are 4 hours on Free, 24 hours on Starter, 3 days on Pro, and 7 days on Team.
v1.5July 2, 2026

Projects redesign, monorepo previews, and a security sweep

  • Projects dashboard rebuilt — the project list now leads with a live preview hero instead of a table row, and every preview shows a TTL ring so you can see at a glance how much of its lifetime is left. Project detail got the same treatment: one spine down the page, build logs and settings where you expect them.
  • Monorepo previews — the deployment API accepts a rootDir (e.g. apps/web), so a repo with several apps in it can deploy the one you actually want. Relative paths only; .. segments are rejected.
  • Superseded deploys are destroyed, not orphaned — pushing twice in quick succession used to leave the first container running and holding a preview slot. The webhook now tears down the deploy it replaced.
  • Failed provisioning no longer leaks servers — when a build node timed out mid-provision, the half-created server stayed up and billed. It's now cleaned up on the failure path, and anything that can't be cleaned raises an admin alert instead of going quiet.
  • Deploy failure alerts — when a build fails, an email goes to the workspace's alert address rather than the failure sitting unread in the dashboard.
  • Security fixes — OAuth callbacks are CSRF-protected, the repo-clone path has an SSRF guard, project deletion is atomic (no more half-deleted projects on error), and database errors no longer surface as bare 500s.
  • Framework guides — dedicated setup pages for Next.js, Nuxt, SvelteKit, Astro, Express, Django, FastAPI, Rails, Laravel, Go, Rust, Spring Boot, and .NET.
v1.4June 25, 2026

Referral program, onboarding checklist, and branch glob patterns

  • Referral program — share your personal link (previewdrop.dev/r/<code>) and earn an extra project slot for every friend who signs up. Your code and earned bonuses are visible at Settings → Referral. No limits on referrals.
  • Onboarding checklist — a getting-started card on the Projects dashboard walks you through the four setup steps: connect the GitHub App, deploy your first preview, invite a teammate, and set an environment variable. It tracks your real progress from the database and disappears once you're done.
  • Branch glob patterns — tracked branches in project Settings now accept wildcard patterns like feat/* or release/** alongside exact branch names. Useful for teams that use consistent branch naming conventions without having to list every branch manually.
  • Weekly build digest — PreviewDrop will send a weekly email summary of your deployment activity: total builds, success/failure counts, average build time trend, and an estimate of preview hours used.
v1.3June 8, 2026

Slack notifications, auto-deploy toggle fix, and security hardening

  • Slack notifications — each project can now have a Slack Incoming Webhook URL in Settings → Slack notifications. When set, PreviewDrop sends a rich message (project name, branch, status pill, one-click "Open Preview" button) whenever a deployment becomes ready or fails. Notifications are fire-and-forget so a Slack outage never blocks your deploy.
  • Auto-deploy toggle respected by all webhook sources — the "Auto-deploy" toggle in project Settings now correctly prevents builds from being queued. Previously, the GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket webhook handlers checked the wrong flag and triggered builds regardless of the toggle state.
  • Status page link always visible — the "Status" link in the site footer was silently hidden when the STATUS_PAGE_URL environment variable was not configured. It now uses a hardcoded fallback so the link always renders.
  • Security hardening — public /api/health endpoint no longer leaks internal worker node hostnames/IPs; anonymous demo rate-limit correctly uses rightmost-untrusted IP (prevents spoofing via X-Forwarded-For); public badge endpoint is now rate-limited.
  • Performance indexes — new database indexes covering the Slack notification lookup path, error-digest cron, admin logs UI, and Stripe event idempotency.
v1.2May 14, 2026

MCP server for AI agents, PR comment updates, and billed plans

  • MCP server for AI agents — the official PreviewDrop MCP server lets Claude, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible AI agent deploy branches, tail build logs, list deployments, and destroy previews — all from your editor. One-click install in VS Code, or npx previewdrop mcp.
  • PR comments update in-place — the bot now edits its existing comment on every new push instead of posting a new one. No comment spam, just one clean thread per PR.
  • Billed plans (Starter, Pro, Team) — beyond the free tier: Starter ($19/mo, 5 concurrent), Pro ($79/mo, 20 concurrent), Team ($149/mo, 50 concurrent). All with longer TTLs and priority support. Billing via Stripe.
  • API v1 with OpenAPI spec — trigger deploys, fetch logs, list projects, and manage environment variables programmatically. Full OpenAPI 3.1 spec at /docs/api-reference powered by Scalar.
  • AI build diagnostics — when a build fails, PreviewDrop surfaces the likely fix inline in the build log (missing env vars, port binding, dependency errors) using DeepSeek-powered analysis.
v1.1April 22, 2026

Password protection, CLI, and WebSocket build logs

  • Password-protected preview URLs — set a per-preview password so you can share work-in-progress with clients or QA without exposing it publicly. Also: QR code generation for mobile testing.
  • CLI released on npm — npx previewdrop deploy triggers a preview build from your terminal. Works in CI, supports --branch, --project, and --wait flags. Install with npm i -g previewdrop.
  • Real-time build logs over WebSocket — build logs now stream live to the dashboard. No more polling or page refreshes — watch the build happen line by line.
  • GitLab and Bitbucket support — connect repos from GitLab and Bitbucket in addition to GitHub. Same auto-deploy-on-push workflow across all three providers.
  • Commit status checks — every preview deployment posts a GitHub commit status (pending → success/failure) so your team can see at a glance whether the preview is ready.
v1.0April 1, 2026

PreviewDrop public beta — live preview URLs for every branch

  • Branch previews for any Docker app — push a branch, get a live HTTPS URL. Django, Rails, Laravel, FastAPI, Spring Boot, Node, Go, Rust — if it runs in Docker, PreviewDrop previews it.
  • GitHub integration — connect a repo, and every PR gets an auto-posted bot comment with the preview URL, commit status check, and build summary.
  • Auto-detection for common stacks — no Dockerfile needed. PreviewDrop detects Django, Rails, Laravel, FastAPI, Node, Go, Rust, and .NET and builds the right image.
  • Auto-expiring previews — every preview has a TTL. Merge or close the branch, and the container self-destructs. No zombie previews.
  • Free tier available — 2 concurrent previews, 3 projects, no credit card required.

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