Resting mode

A resting site stops its application and its database. Visitors still read every page, served from a snapshot. Nothing runs that needs the live application, so a small server does almost no work for a site nobody is editing.

When you want to work on the site again, you wake it. It's ready in about a minute.

What visitors see

Resting builds on Freeze & Live. Before the site stops, Atelier freezes it: it takes a fresh snapshot and serves it.

While the site rests:

• Ordinary pages come from that snapshot, as they do on a frozen site. A page missing from the snapshot shows its "not found" page.
• Sign-in, forms and anything else that needs the application get a calm page titled This site is resting instead. It says that sign-in and forms are paused, and links to the home page. It is sent as 503, so search engines treat it as a pause, not a missing page.
• The console at /atelier shows the same page with a form to enter the site's wake code.

Visitors and crawlers can't wake the site. Reading pages, following links or sending a form never starts it. Only the wake code at /atelier or a paired Manager does.

Put a site to rest

atelier --experimental --site shop site rest

The Manager asks first. On a running site on a server you type the site's short name, as for any change to a live site. In a script, pass --yes --confirm-slug shop.

Resting happens in two steps:

1. Atelier freezes the site: a fresh snapshot of every published page, which visitors then see.
2. Then the application and the database stop.

If the freeze fails, nothing stops. The site stays awake, and the error says why.

On a site with the engine, stopping is resting: atelier --site shop app stop rests the site, and in the desktop app the home screen's button reads Rest and asks first. System → Experimental features → Put the site to rest does the same. The home screen then says Your website is resting, and the site list says Resting.

atelier --site shop app status shows the engine's state: resting, waking, awake, locked down or stopped.

Wake a site

Waking starts the database and the application again. It takes up to about a minute on a small server.

From a paired Manager

atelier --experimental --site shop site wake

Waking doesn't ask first: visitors lose nothing. In the desktop app, choose Wake my website on the home screen, or Wake the site under System → Experimental features.

With the wake code

Open the site's console at /atelier, enter the wake code and choose Wake. A progress page follows the wake and opens the console when the site is ready. Then sign in as usual.

The wake code wakes the site. It doesn't sign anyone in, and it isn't a password for the console.

After waking

Visitors keep seeing the snapshot taken when the site went to rest. Your edits reach them when you freeze again, or when you switch the site back to live:

atelier --experimental --site shop site live

You, signed in, see the live site as usual. See Freeze & Live.

Manage the wake code

A site has no wake code until you make one. Make one, or replace the current one:

atelier --experimental --site shop engine wake-code --rotate

The code is shown once. The site keeps only a fingerprint of it, so store it somewhere safe, such as a password manager. Making a new code replaces the old one.

Turn waking by code off:

atelier --experimental --site shop engine wake-code --revoke

Then only a paired Manager can wake the site. Without --rotate or --revoke, the command only says whether a code is set.

In the desktop app, use Make a new wake code and Turn waking by code off under System → Experimental features.

Wrong codes are limited. After too many wrong tries from one address, that address has to wait. After too many from everywhere, waking by code pauses for everyone for a while. A paired Manager can still wake the site during a pause.

Rest again when idle

A woken site goes back to rest on its own after 30 minutes without console activity. Visitors reading pages don't count; only signed-in work in the console does.

Change the minutes in the site's .env:

ATELIER_IDLE_REST_MINUTES=60

0 turns the idle timer off. The site then rests only when you ask.

Resting and lockdown

Lockdown is resting with waking turned off. Neither the wake code nor a Manager can wake the site, and site rest is refused.

After site unlock, the site is still resting, with waking open again. Wake it when you're ready.

Good to know

• Resting needs the engine. Without it, site rest refuses, and site wake points you to app start.
• Starting is waking. On a site with the engine, app start and the desktop app's Wake my website wake it. A locked-down site can't be started until it is unlocked.
• Started by hand. If the site is started some other way, for example with docker compose start on the server, the engine notices and treats it as woken. The idle timer then applies.
• Removing the engine wakes a resting site first. See Remove the engine.