# Publishing an app

> Two ways in. Your coding agent calls the reachpad MCP server and hands over the files, or you upload one file and reachpad publishes it for you.

Part of the reachpad docs: https://reachpad.dev/docs. Rendered page: https://reachpad.dev/docs/publishing. Last checked 2026-09-04.

## Through your coding agent

Connect the agent to `https://reachpad.dev/mcp` once, which is [one URL and four steps](https://reachpad.dev/docs/mcp), then ask it to publish. It calls `create_app` and gets the link back in the answer.

- `name` is what your list shows.
- `files` is an array of `{ path, content }`, with the content written as text rather than encoded.
- `slug` picks the subdomain. Leave it out and it comes from the name.
- `manifest` says how the version runs: `{ "kind": "page", "entry": "index.html" }`, or `{ "kind": "function", "entry": "server.js" }` for a server, whose `env` holds plain string values the module can read. Omit the manifest for a page.
- `access` sets who can open the link. Leave it out and it is anyone signed in to your organization.

> Note: Version 1 is live the moment `create_app` answers. There is no staging step and no draft, so ask your agent to show you the content and the destination before it calls.

## Publishing a change

Have the agent call `read_app` first. It answers with the app's live version and that version's id. Pass the id to `update_app` as `base_version_id`.

If somebody else published in between, `update_app` refuses with `stale_base` rather than dropping their version. The move after that refusal is to read the app again and publish against what is live now.

A publish replaces the whole file set. A file that was in the last version and is not in this call is not in the app any more.

New versions go live as they are published, up to 60 an hour for one app.

## Uploading a file

[Add an app](https://reachpad.dev/apps/new) takes one file and publishes it as version 1 of a new app.

- A Markdown file is rendered to a page, and the Markdown travels with it.
- An HTML file is served as it is.
- Any other file gets a page naming it and its size, with the file itself behind that page.

The same screen writes a build prompt you can paste into a coding agent that has your project folder open, for the times when the thing you want published does not exist yet.

## What the link serves after a publish

The app's own link always serves whichever version is live. Each version also keeps a link of its own that never changes what it serves: [versions and their links](https://reachpad.dev/docs/versions).