When an app is locked

An administrator can lock an app. Locking stops it, and it stays stopped until the lock is lifted. Only an administrator can lift it.

Locked is not stopped

	Stopped	Locked
Who can undo it	Any editor, with Start	Only an administrator
Visitors see	—	The lock message
After it ends	—	The app stays stopped until somebody presses Start

What a lock blocks

• Deploying, uploading and auto-deploy
• Starting and restarting
• Rolling back, because it would change what is served
• Running jobs: scheduled runs don’t fire, queued runs are canceled, and a run in progress is stopped
• Changing the app’s settings, including its visibility and environment variables

Every refusal includes the lock message: the administrator’s own words, or the install’s default if they didn’t write one. Read it; it is written for you.

From the CLI, a locked app exits with code 2, not 1, and prints that nothing was built.

Who locked it

The refusal says which of two things placed the lock:

• An administrator. Reply to them; Toft has no way around a lock.
• This install’s dependency policy. The serving deployment installs a package the policy won’t run, and the Dependencies tab says which. Deploy again without it, or ask for a waiver. An unlock alone is undone by the next check. See Dependencies and policy.

Retired apps

An app that is no longer needed is retired by locking it; there is no separate archived state. If the message doesn’t say whether your app was retired or locked for a reason, ask the administrator.