Deployment

On a production server Magento builds nothing on the fly: classes, styles and scripts are prepared in advance. So a deployment is not copying files but a sequence of commands. A skipped step gives an empty page or a site without design.

Production mode

bin/magento deploy:mode:set production
bin/magento deploy:mode:show

The first command switches the mode and runs the build itself; the second prints the current mode.

Mode	Behaviour
`developer`	Errors on screen, everything is built on the fly, slow
`default`	Intermediate, only for the first run
`production`	Errors only in the log, everything is built in advance, fast

Develop in developer, and enable only production on a live server.

The deployment order

Once the new code is on the server, run:

bin/magento maintenance:enable
 
composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader
 
bin/magento setup:upgrade --keep-generated
bin/magento setup:di:compile
bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy en_US de_DE -f
 
bin/magento cache:flush
bin/magento maintenance:disable

While the commands run, visitors see a "Service unavailable" page, and after the last command the shop runs the new code.

What each command does

Command	Action
`maintenance:enable`	Closes the site to visitors
`composer install --no-dev`	Installs packages without development tools
`setup:upgrade`	Updates tables from `db_schema.xml` and applies new patches
`setup:di:compile`	Generates classes and dependency information into the `generated` folder
`setup:static-content:deploy`	Builds theme styles, scripts and images into `pub/static`
`cache:flush`	Empties the whole cache
`maintenance:disable`	Opens the site

Static content

The setup:static-content:deploy command lists every language enabled on store views and used by staff in the admin panel. For a language missing from the list, a page opens without styles. The -f flag allows running outside production mode.

Maintenance mode

bin/magento maintenance:enable --ip=203.0.113.5
bin/magento maintenance:status

The --ip option keeps the site open for the given address — this way a deployment is checked before visitors are let in.

Server settings

File	What is in it	Keep with the code
`app/etc/env.php`	Database, cache, admin address, encryption key	No, every server has its own
`app/etc/config.php`	The list of modules	Yes

The encryption key from env.php is needed to decrypt saved payment system passwords. When a shop moves to another server, the key moves together with the database.

Before launch

What to check	How
Mode	`deploy:mode:show` shows `production`
Site root	The web server points at the `pub` folder
Scheduler	`crontab -l` contains Magento lines
Indexers	`indexer:status` — all are Ready
Cache	`cache:status` — all types enabled
Admin address	Not `/admin` but your own
Two-factor login	Enabled for staff

Common mistake

The site opened without styles — setup:static-content:deploy was not run or was run for the wrong language. A page is empty after an update — setup:di:compile was not run, and old classes remain in the generated folder. A third cause of failures is running the commands as root: files in var, generated and pub/static belong to it, and the web server cannot change them. Run all commands as the user PHP runs under.

Thanks for reading!