---
title: "Deployments"
description: "Go deeper with deployments: instant rollbacks to recover from mistakes, skew protection to prevent version mismatches, and deployment checks for quality gates."
canonical_url: "https://vercel.com/academy/vercel-foundations/deployments"
md_url: "https://vercel.com/academy/vercel-foundations/deployments.md"
docset_id: "vercel-academy"
doc_version: "1.0"
last_updated: "2026-06-27T23:07:14.604Z"
content_type: "lesson"
course: "vercel-foundations"
course_title: "Vercel Foundations"
prerequisites:  []
---

<agent-instructions>
Vercel Academy — structured learning, not reference docs.
Lessons are sequenced.
Adapt commands to the human's actual environment (OS, package manager, shell, editor) — detect from project context or ask, don't assume.
The lesson shows one path; if the human's project diverges, adapt concepts to their setup.
Preserve the learning goal over literal steps.
Quizzes are pedagogical — engage, don't spoil.
Quiz answers are included for your reference.
</agent-instructions>

# Deployments

# Deployments Going Deeper

You already know how to deploy. Now let's talk about what happens when something goes wrong, or when your users are running a version of the app that's one deploy behind.

## Instant rollbacks

Every deployment on Vercel is immutable and preserved. If a bad deploy goes out, you don't need to revert a commit, push a fix, and wait for a new build.

Go to **Deployments**, click the three dots on a previous deployment, and select **Instant Rollback**. Traffic reroutes to the older deployment in about a second.

Once you've shipped the actual fix, go back to deployments, click the three dots on your latest deployment, and select **Promote** to undo the rollback.

## Skew protection

Here's a subtle problem: a user opens your app at version 1. While they're browsing, your team deploys version 2 with an API change. The user clicks something, the frontend sends a request expecting the version 1 API, and the response doesn't match. Error.

Vercel's skew protection handles this automatically. It ensures that clients still on an older version continue to receive responses from that version's API.

You'll find it under **Settings > Advanced**. It's enabled by default. You can configure the maximum age (how long old versions stay available) from 4 hours to 30 days.

## Recap

- **Instant rollbacks** reroute traffic to a previous deployment in seconds, no rebuild needed
- **Promote** undoes a rollback when the fix is deployed
- **Skew protection** prevents version mismatches between your frontend and API, enabled by default

## Follow up docs

- [Instant Rollback](https://vercel.com/docs/instant-rollback)
- [Promoting deployments](https://vercel.com/docs/deployments/promoting-a-deployment)
- [Skew protection](https://vercel.com/docs/skew-protection)
- [Managing deployments](https://vercel.com/docs/deployments/managing-deployments)
- [Deployment Retention](https://vercel.com/docs/deployment-retention)


---

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