Stop or activate builds
If your site is linked to a Git repository, Netlify will by default build your site according to your continuous deployment settings when you push to your Git provider. You can stop builds for your site at will for more control of your workflow. When you’re ready for Netlify to build your site again, you can activate builds.
For example, you might:
- stop builds while you use a continuous integration tool to run validations and then activate builds after all validations are successful.
- stop builds while you’re sequentially pushing many small commits in response to review feedback on a pull/merge request and then activate builds before you push the last commit.
- stop builds as part of implementing a content freeze and then activate builds when the freeze is over.
Stop builds vs. stop auto publishing
When you stop builds for a site, you prevent Netlify from building production deploys, Deploy Previews, and branch deploys. If you only want to stop new production deploys from being published, you can stop auto publishing.
# Stop builds
To stop builds for a site, go to
, select Configure, and then toggle Build status to Stopped builds.
When builds are stopped, Netlify will never build your site.
- If you push to your linked repository, Netlify will not build production deploys, Deploy Previews, or branch deploys.
- If requests are sent to build hook URLs, Netlify will not build your site.
- You will not be able to trigger a build of your site with the Netlify API. Any POST requests to
/api/v1/sites/{site_id}/buildswill return an error message. - You will not be able to build your site using the Netlify UI. On the Deploys page, the Trigger deploy button will be unavailable. On the detail page for a past deploy, the Retry with latest branch commit button will be unavailable.
Tip
You can still update your site by running a build locally with the CLI and then creating a deploy manually with the CLI or the API.
Netlify will send a notification email to let any other site members know that builds are stopped for the site. There will also be warnings in these locations in the Netlify UI:
- your team’s Sites page.
- the Site overview page.
- the site’s Deploys page.
- Site configuration under .
Relinking the Git repository will activate builds
If you unlink and then relink your site’s repository or link to a different repository, builds will be activated as part of the new configuration.
# Activate builds
By default, builds are active. If builds have been stopped for a site, there are multiple ways you can activate them. You can:
go to
, select Configure, and then toggle Build status to Active builds.
go to the
page and use the Activate builds button.
go to the site’s
page and use the Activate builds button.
Activating builds does not trigger a build
Netlify does not immediately build your site when you activate builds. After you activate builds, Netlify will build your site when you push to your Git repository, trigger a build hook, POST to /api/v1/sites/{site_id}/builds, or trigger/retry a deploy using the Netlify UI.
Netlify will send a notification email to let any other site members know that builds have been activated for the site.
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