# Drafts, published changes, and immediate actions

You'll learn which changes you can prepare in a draft, how to preview them, and which actions take effect without publishing.

You can work on questions, flows, widgets, and website campaigns without showing unfinished changes to visitors. RightMessage saves those edits to a project draft. **Publish** makes the publishable configuration live.

Some actions, such as deleting a media file or changing an integration, take effect separately. They don't wait for you to publish your website changes.

## A saved draft isn't a live change

RightMessage saves meaningful configuration edits as you work. The unpublished changes bar compares your draft with what's published. Opening an editor without changing anything doesn't create a draft change by itself.

Visitors keep seeing the published setup until you publish again. If you edit a shared question or offer, check everywhere it's used before publishing.

Everyone working in the project shares the same draft. Another collaborator, Righty, or a connected AI assistant can change it. If RightMessage detects another change while you have unsaved edits, it asks you to reload rather than silently merging the versions. Reloading replaces your unsaved edits.

[Review and publish project changes](https://rightmessage.com/help/publishing-your-changes) explains the review dialog and publish note.

## Preview uses the draft without publishing it

**Preview on your site** opens an authorized debugger session on your website. **Draft** loads unpublished changes for that session. **Published** loads the live configuration, but still runs inside the debugger's testing sandbox.

Segment overrides and contact impersonation change the simulated visitor, not the real contact record. **Save to draft** in the debugger's campaign change editor is different. It saves a real project edit, which stays saved when you leave the debugger.

See [testing your changes](https://rightmessage.com/help/best-practices-for-testing) for how to use the preview and check a normal visitor's path.

## Actions that don't wait for Publish

These actions have their own save, confirmation, or authorization step:

| When you do this                                             | What changes without **Publish**                                            |
| ------------------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Change your profile or invite collaborators                  | Your account details or project access.                                     |
| Billing and subscription actions                             | Billing, when checkout or confirmation succeeds.                            |
| Connect, update, or disconnect an email-platform integration | The connection itself, not an unpublished copy of your credentials.         |
| Upload or delete media                                       | The media library. Deleting a file can break a live image immediately.      |
| Delete collected data                                        | Stored data. A configuration backup doesn't recover deleted reporting data. |

An integration can appear in the changes review because it affects website behavior. The connection itself doesn't wait for publication.

### Deleting a gallery image can break a live image immediately

The **Media Gallery** deletion dialog is titled **Really Delete This Image?** It warns that a live site using the image will stop showing it straight away. **Delete** removes the file without a later **Publish** step. **Cancel** keeps it.

Removing an image from a draft question or offer doesn't delete the file from the gallery. If a live placement still uses the file, keep it until you've replaced those uses. Restoring an older configuration won't recreate a deleted media file.

## Publishing has prerequisites

A draft can contain work that isn't ready or eligible to go live. Publication checks form setup, integration-dependent rules, and other configuration problems. Your project's subscription also controls which features can be published.

![Publish validation explaining that forms need an email integration before the draft can go live](https://rightmessage.com/help/screens/publish-review.light.webp)

A validation message means your draft is still saved, but that publish attempt hasn't made it live. A plan warning can instead explain that certain features won't be included. See [publication troubleshooting](https://rightmessage.com/help/troubleshoot-publishing) to understand the message and what to do next.

## AI changes and A/B tests have the same boundaries

Righty's configuration edits and those made through a connected AI assistant go into the shared draft. Publishing is separate. Righty can't publish. An external assistant can publish when you tell it to, subject to the operation's access checks.

Not every assistant action is a draft edit. Integration actions and other separately stored changes can take effect without publication.

Question, offer, and flow A/B tests have their own start action. Saving variants or publishing the project doesn't start a draft test. **Review and start** takes you to the test's review and start controls.

[Restoring a version](https://rightmessage.com/help/config-versioning-and-version-history) replaces the draft. You'll still need to publish it to change the live website.