Workspace Studio Feature

What it is

Workspace Studio is Core's browser surface for builders. It wraps the same workspace source and Pod-powered Vite build pipeline. Checkpoints control preview, production release, and rollback.

Workspace Studio is not part of @norbital-ai/pod. It is a Core-only plugin.

What builders do here

Edit filesystem roles under src/: collections, apps, hooks, automations, and remotes
Sync preview and go live through Checkpoints release controls
Manage users, teams, policy assignment, and billing
Configure Agent for the organization

Checkpoints is the release control inside Workspace Studio, not a separate product surface. It turns workspace source into immutable, versioned Vite build bundles keyed by tree hash, with separate preview and production pointers.

Immutable build bundles

Each successful sync or production release produces a frozen artifact bundle containing compiled tenant apps, the runtime bundle, and migration SQL. Checkpoints do not mutate. A new release creates a new checkpoint.

Commit → preview → verify → live

Commit or save: persist draft source in the edit zone only. This does not build or run DDL.
Sync preview: build in a sandbox, apply preview DDL to a Neon fork, and set the preview head on the branch
Verify: test tenant apps and policies against preview data.
Go live: promote the checkpoint to production. Rollback restores a prior live head.

Preview state vs live head

Preview: latest synced checkpoint plus the preview tenant database (branch state via branch_db_map)
Live: production pointer to the active checkpoint and live tenant database

Save is not a build

Schema, automations, and compiled apps change on Sync preview and Go live, not on every save or commit. Draft edits stay in the edit zone until you explicitly sync or promote.

What Core adds

Core gives builders one browser surface for source changes, preview, production releases, and rollback.