Getting started
Core concepts
PreFlight uses a small, consistent vocabulary. Learn these five nouns and every dashboard tab, API route, and doc page will read naturally.
Everything in the product — checks, Uptime Monitoring, Release Rules, Trust Center exports, and MCP tools — hangs off a workspace and the projects inside it.
Workspace
A workspace is one operator's product container. It owns billing, apps, alert channels, and account API keys. API keys inherit the owner's project access.
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Project
A project represents one app you are launching or operating. Each project stores:
| Field | Purpose |
| --- | --- |
| Production or staging URL | The only origin scanned for DNS, SSL, SEO, legal pages, and frontend secret leaks |
| Connected providers | Encrypted credential bundles per integration |
| Check history | Every probe result with response time and fix suggestions |
| Watchdog state | Monitoring sessions, Uptime Monitoring cadence, Vercel Watch, Payment Sync |
| Trust & exports | Public trust tokens and downloadable reports |
Keep staging and production in separate projects when their URLs and credentials differ. Mixing environments in one project makes Release Rules and Trust Center evidence harder to explain.
Check
A check is a single evaluation of a project. PreFlight runs three probe families in one action:
| Family | Examples |
| --- | --- |
| App URL | DNS, TLS, SEO tags, legal pages, performance budget, secret scanner |
| Provider | Stripe signing, Supabase admin, Resend sender, Vercel deployment state |
| Consistency | Cross-provider sanity such as environment parity between services |
Checks are stored as runs. Each run contains many probe rows keyed by integrationType and probeKey — the same identifiers Recovery Guides, incidents, and the API surface use.
Watchdog
Watchdogs sample over time instead of running once:
| Watchdog | When to use |
| --- | --- |
| 24-hour Monitoring | Dense sampling during launch week when rollback is still cheap |
| Continuous Uptime Monitoring | Always-on health sampling with cadence, pause, and failure thresholds |
| Vercel Watch | Production deployment status, domain drift, env parity |
| Payment Sync | Stripe Checkout sessions reconciled against Supabase side effects |
| Data Integrity Guard | Metadata-only Supabase baseline and read-only integrity signals; it does not prove backup restorability |
Read Uptime Monitoring for how launch-window monitoring hands off to Sentinel.
Gate
A release rule is a release control. CI, GitHub Actions, or Vercel asks PreFlight whether a project is safe to ship. The gate returns allowed: true | false with human-readable blocking reasons.
Gates can require fresh checks, healthy Uptime Monitoring, clean Payment Sync, Database Change Check, and provider pass rates. See Release Rules for strict vs relaxed policies.
How they connect
Create a workspace and project for the app you are shipping.
Connect providers and run a check to establish a baseline.
Start Monitoring for the launch window, then enable Uptime Monitoring for ongoing coverage.
Add a release rule so future releases cannot ship while the project is unhealthy.
Publish a Trust Center report when external stakeholders need evidence.
Optionally connect the MCP server so agents can re-run checks from your IDE.
Product surface map
| Dashboard area | Concept |
| --- | --- |
| Overview, Checks, Readiness | Check + baseline |
| Monitoring, Uptime Monitoring, Incidents | Watchdog + response |
| Vercel Watch, Payment Sync | Specialized watchdogs |
| Release Rules, API Security | Gate + automation boundaries |
| Recovery Guides, Event Timeline, Activity | Evidence + remediation |
| Trust Center, Exports | External proof |
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{ href: "/docs/guides/command-center", title: "Dashboard guide", description: "Every tab explained in plain language." },
{ href: "/docs/api/overview", title: "API overview", description: "Automate checks and gates outside the UI." },
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