Explore changes with drafts

Drafts let you make changes in a copy of your project instead of the main version itself. Each draft has its own chat, preview, and edits. When you’re ready, accept the draft to add its edits to your project, or delete it to discard them. If you’ve worked with version control, a draft is a branch of your project, and accepting one merges it back. Nothing you build in a draft reaches your project until you accept it, and accepting a draft does not change your published app. Your published app changes only when you publish. Your app’s data is the exception. A draft uses your project’s real data, so the information you add or change while testing is real. See Drafts share your app’s backend and data. Drafts are available on all plans. Messages you send in a draft cost the same as messages in the main version of your project, and creating, updating, accepting, and deleting a draft don’t use credits. You need edit access to create, update, accept, or delete a draft.

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When to use a draft

Drafts work well whenever you want to try something without changing the version everyone else is working on. For example:

• Test a redesign. Try new colors, fonts, or a different layout in a draft, and compare it with your current design before you commit to it.
• Find the words that work. Write different headlines, product descriptions, or calls to action in separate drafts, and keep the version that reads best.
• Try new visuals and motion. See how different photos, illustrations, or video change the feel of a page, or test scroll animations, a carousel, or a sticky navigation bar.
• Build a feature that needs new data. Ask for a new table or column in a draft. Lovable prepares the change and adds it to your project’s database when you accept the draft. See Add database tables and columns from a draft.
• Prepare changes for later. Build a sale banner or a seasonal page in a draft today, and accept it when you want to add it to your project.
• Hand changes to someone else. Let a teammate or client work in a draft, then review the changes and accept them when they’re ready.

Drafts are optional, and you can keep building exactly as you do today. Make quick changes like typo fixes directly in your project.

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How drafts work

You create a draft from your project’s main version, make changes in the draft, then accept it to keep those changes or delete it to discard them. You’ll see six terms as you work with drafts: Main, Draft, Update, Accept, Delete, and Publish. The table below explains each one using the same example: a bakery website where you want to try a new homepage design without changing the homepage you already have.

For readers who know version control

If you’ve used version control, drafts map to familiar concepts:

• A draft is a branch forked from your project’s history, with its own chat.
• Update rebases the draft onto the latest version of your project. If changes overlap, Lovable resolves the conflicts by reworking the draft’s edits.
• Accept is a fast-forward merge. Your project’s history stays linear, and the draft’s edits are added as a named group.
• Delete discards the branch.

You don’t need to know any of this to use drafts, and these terms don’t appear in the product.

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Create your first draft

Follow these steps to create a draft, make changes, compare it with your project, and decide whether to keep it.

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Status indicators

When you have several drafts, the switcher shows the status of each one: In the switcher above, Lovable is working in Draft 1, Draft 2 is waiting for an answer, and Draft 3 has newer project edits to bring in. The blue dot on Main preview means the project has changes ready to publish. Hover over a row to see what its indicator means: If a draft has no indicator, it doesn’t need your attention. The Main preview row has an indicator of its own. It tells you whether your project is published, and whether it has changes you haven’t published yet: On a published project, accepting a draft turns that dot blue, because the draft’s edits are now waiting to be published. See Publish your project.

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Update a draft with newer project changes

A draft starts as a copy of your project. After you create it, you or a teammate might make newer changes to the project. Those changes don’t appear in the draft automatically. When newer changes are available, Lovable shows a New edits available message above the draft’s chat, and the draft’s row in the switcher gets gray refresh arrows labeled Updates available. Select Update to bring the newer project changes into the draft. You can update from the message above the chat, from the chevron next to the switcher’s Accept button, or from the draft’s ⋮ menu. You can also ask Lovable to update the draft in its chat. If the newer project changes overlap with edits in the draft, Lovable adjusts the draft’s edits to work with the updated version. The update can take a few minutes, and Lovable may add a follow-up message to the draft’s chat. The update doesn’t use credits. You don’t need to update a draft before accepting it. If your project has newer changes, Lovable updates the draft first and then accepts it. To do both steps yourself, select Accept draft after updating in the update dialog.

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Delete a draft

To delete a draft, open its ⋮ menu, select Delete, and confirm. Deleting removes the draft and all of its edits. Your project stays unchanged, and the deleted draft can’t be restored.

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Change the order of your drafts

The switcher lists your drafts with the most recent activity first. To set your own order, press and hold a draft for a moment, then drag it where you want it. Lovable remembers that order for the project in the browser you’re using.

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Use drafts with your team

Everyone with edit access to the project sees the same drafts. Each draft shows who’s currently working in it. If you open a draft that someone else is using, Lovable suggests creating your own draft so you can work separately. When someone accepts a draft, its changes are added to the project for everyone. Any other open drafts then show New edits available until they’re updated. If several drafts are accepted around the same time, Lovable processes them one at a time. When more than one draft is waiting, an Accepting drafts card appears above the project chat and shows the order. You can remove a waiting draft or drag drafts to change the order.

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Drafts share your app’s backend and data

A draft keeps your changes to the app separate, but it doesn’t have a backend of its own. Every draft uses your project’s built-in backend (Cloud): the same database, the same files, and the same settings. If you add, edit, or delete information while testing in a draft, those changes are real, just as they are when you test your project directly. Deleting the draft doesn’t undo them. Backend work you ask for in a draft applies to your project in the same way. When an action is harder to undo, Lovable explains it in the draft’s chat first and asks you to confirm.

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Add database tables and columns from a draft

Your app keeps its information in a database, organized into tables. A table of reviews, for example, has a column for the rating, one for the comment, and one for the product being reviewed. Every draft uses the same database as your project, so Lovable doesn’t add a table or a column while you work in a draft. It prepares the change and makes it when you accept the draft:

1. You ask for it in the draft’s chat. For example, “Add a reviews table with a rating, a comment, and the product it belongs to.”
2. Lovable prepares the change and builds the pages that use it. The table doesn’t exist yet, so any page that reads or saves reviews shows an error in the draft’s preview. That error is expected, and it disappears when you accept the draft.
3. You accept the draft. Lovable adds the table to your project’s database and describes what it added in your project’s main chat.

This works for additions: new tables, new columns, and new rules about who can read or change the information. Three kinds of change have to happen in the main version of your project: removing a table or a column, renaming one, and changing the kind of information a column stores. If you ask for one of those in a draft, Lovable points you to the main version and continues with the rest of your request. You also enable the built-in backend (Cloud) from the main version of your project. If your project doesn’t have Cloud yet and your draft needs it, switch to the main version and ask Lovable to enable it there. Then update your draft to bring the change in.

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Work with drafts on your phone

You can create, switch between, and manage drafts from your phone. Open the drafts list in either of two ways:

• Tap your project’s name at the top of the screen and select Drafts.
• Tap the button above the chat input, which shows Main or the name of the draft you’re in. It appears once the project has at least one draft.

The list works like the switcher on a computer: tap a draft to switch to it, tap New draft to create one, and open a draft’s ⋮ menu to rename, update, accept, or delete it. When an action isn’t available, the reason appears next to it in the menu.

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Limitations

Keep these in mind while you work with drafts.

• Drafts don’t support Git sync yet. A draft doesn’t appear as a branch in your connected repository, and its code reaches the repository only after you accept the draft.
• Some database work has to happen in the main version of your project: removing a table or a column, renaming one, changing the kind of information a column stores, and enabling the built-in backend (Cloud).

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Troubleshooting

If drafts aren’t working as expected, these are the most common causes.

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FAQ

Common questions about working with drafts.