Review changes
Preview changes before they go live, share them with your team, request review, and merge pull requests from the editor.
Preview your changes before they reach your live site, request review on your pull request, and merge it from the editor.
Live preview
Live preview renders your site as you edit, with no build step. On the Site tab, click Preview in the top bar. The preview opens full screen. Click Refresh preview to reload it, or Close preview to return to the editor. To open the preview in a new browser tab instead, turn on Open live preview in new tab.
To edit site settings and see how they affect your content, click Site settings in the preview toolbar, then select a configuration section.
To open the agent beside the preview, click Ask agent in the preview toolbar. Only editors and admins can use the agent in live previews.
Live preview is only available for public sites and sites protected by Mintlify authentication.
Preview deployments
When your feature branch has a pull request, Mintlify builds a preview deployment: a temporary URL where your changes render exactly as they look when published. The preview rebuilds each time the editor commits new changes to the branch. The URL combines your project’s subdomain and the branch name: <subdomain>-<branch-name>.mintlify.site. Find the exact URL in the pull request comment from the Mintlify bot.
Preview URLs are publicly accessible by default. To restrict access to members of your Mintlify organization, enable preview authentication in the Previews section of the General page in your dashboard. See Restrict access to preview deployments for more information.
Which preview to use
| Feature | Live preview | Preview deployment |
|---|---|---|
| Speed | Instant | Requires a build |
| Access | Inside the editor | Shareable URL |
| Use when | Reviewing changes while editing | Sharing with your team for review |
| Availability | While the editor is open | As long as the branch exists |
Share an editor link
To point a teammate at a specific page on a branch, click More options in the top-right of the page, then click Copy link. Anyone with access to your Mintlify organization can open the link in their own editor session.
Review and merge pull requests
When your branch has a pull request, the publish menu shows its changed files and review status, like Draft in progress, Review required, Changes requested, or Approved. Click View request to open the pull request in your Git provider.
- Click Publish in the top bar, then click Request review. This marks the pull request ready for review.
- Reviewers approve the pull request in your Git provider.
- Click Publish, then click Merge and publish. The editor merges the pull request, deploys your changes, and switches you back to your deployment branch.
If Mintlify hosts your repository and approvals aren’t required, the publish menu shows Publish instead, which merges and deploys in one step.
Configure branch protection rules in your Git provider to require pull requests. See About protected branches in the GitHub help or Protected branches in the GitLab help.
Compare changes before merging
Click any changed file in the publish menu to open it in diff view against the published version. To leave diff view, click Viewing changes in the top bar or press Cmd + Shift + D (macOS) or Ctrl + Shift + D (Windows). Visual mode shows a visual diff and source mode shows a text diff. Files that can’t display a diff, such as images or deleted files, appear in the list but aren’t clickable.
Hidden pages that appear in the branch diff are openable from the publish menu, even though they don’t appear in your site navigation.
Pull request titles and descriptions
The pull request title comes from your branch title.
If your branch has open comment threads, Mintlify adds a summary of them to the pull request description. See Collaborate.
Review an automation run
When an automation opens a pull request, you can open the editor on the automation’s branch:
- From a Slack notification or notification email, click View changes. The editor opens on the automation’s branch in diff view, and the agent opens alongside it with context on what the automation did.
- From the Runs tab on the Automations page in your dashboard, open a run’s actions menu and select Open in editor.
To open the automation’s preview deployment instead, click Preview on the run.