Publishing
- Start a publication
- Choose the right publish action
- Publish a selection
- Publish changes
- Cancel a publication
A publication crawls your WordPress site, creates the static files, and deploys them when deployment is enabled. Use the Staatic menu in the WordPress admin bar to start and monitor publications.
Start a publication
Open the Staatic menu in the WordPress admin bar and choose Publish.
Staatic redirects you to the publication status page after the publication starts. While a publication is running, the admin bar shows Publication Status and Cancel Publication instead of the normal publish actions.
Only one publication can run at a time. If another publication is already pending or running, wait for it to finish or cancel it before starting a new one.
Choose the right publish action
| Action | When to use it |
|---|---|
| Publish | Rebuild and deploy the full live site. |
| Publish to Preview Site | Rebuild the full preview site when the deployment method supports preview publications. |
| Publish Selection | Choose a destination and publish specific URLs or filesystem paths instead of crawling the whole site. |
| Publish Changes | Staatic Premium only. Publish tracked changes to the live site. |
| Publish Changes to Preview Site | Staatic Premium only. Publish tracked changes to the preview site when a compatible preview publication exists. |
| Publish Everything | Staatic Premium only. Rebuild the full site when tracked changes are available and you do not want a partial publication. |
Publication time depends on the number of pages and assets, origin performance, enabled integrations, and deployment target.
Publish a selection
Choose Publish Selection when you need to update specific URLs or files.
| Field | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Destination | Choose Live Site (the default) or Preview Site. This choice appears only when the deployment method supports preview publications. |
| URLs | Absolute or relative URLs to include, such as /, /specific-page/, or /sitemap.xml. |
| Filesystem Paths | Files or directories on disk to include. Directories are scanned recursively. |
| Deployment | Keep enabled to deploy after the build finishes. Disable it when you only want to build and download the generated files as a zip archive. |
Changing the destination keeps your selection. The submit button names the destination and changes from Publish Selection to Build Selection when deployment is disabled.
Staatic validates the URLs and paths before starting the publication. URLs must belong to the current site, and filesystem paths must be readable and mappable to site URLs.
Staatic Premium adds a Strategy choice:
| Strategy | What it does |
|---|---|
| Merge with Active Live Publication / Merge with Active Preview Publication | Includes the selection and keeps the other resources from the active publication at that destination. Use this for most selective updates. |
| Specified Selection Only | Includes only the selected resources. Use this carefully when deployment is enabled, because the deployment method may remove resources that are not part of the new selection. |
Merging requires a compatible active publication at the chosen destination. If it is unavailable, publish the full site there first or explicitly choose Specified Selection Only. Other tracked changes remain available to Publish Changes after publishing a selection.
Publish changes
Staatic Premium can show Publish Changes or Publish Changes to Preview Site when the destination has a compatible active publication and tracked changes since that publication.
For a complete preview, publish the full preview site first. Publishing changes to preview leaves the live site unchanged and keeps its pending changes available.
Use Publish Changes for small content updates that Staatic has tracked, such as public post, page, term, or URL changes. It is designed for quick updates, not as a replacement for every full publication.
Use Publish Everything when a change can affect many pages, such as navigation, menus, templates, sidebars, global styles, footer content, plugin output, or theme behavior. Publish Changes is based on tracked events, not a backlink scan of the whole site.
When no compatible active publication exists or no tracked changes are available, a changes-only publication falls back to a full publication at the chosen destination.
Cancel a publication
If a publication is running, open the Staatic menu in the WordPress admin bar and choose Cancel Publication.
Cancellation may not stop the current task immediately. Staatic marks the publication for cancellation and completes the cancellation as the background publisher checks its state.
After cancellation, review the publication under Staatic > Publications if you need to confirm where it stopped.