What are the best options for automating deployment in an on-prem environment?

[afielden]

All of our ServiceNow instances are on-prem. I'm looking at options for automating deployment of applications between instances. The recommended way of doing this is by using the App Repo. Unfortunately this isn't possible with on-prem instances.

So I think the best we can hope for is automating the deployment of Update Sets. Correct?

I wonder if ServiceNow are considering the possiblity of providing a 'local' App Repo for on-prem instances?

[Ravi Gaurav]

Hi @afielden 

You're absolutely right that automating Update Set deployments appears to be the most viable strategy when working with on‑prem ServiceNow instances—since the native Application Repository (App Repo) is not available for self‑hosted or air‑gapped environments thecloudpeople.com+12ServiceNow+12ServiceNow+12.

That said, recent documentation shows that ServiceNow does now offer a capability for self‑hosted customers to use an internal application repository—much like the App Repo for cloud customers. This feature supports air‑gapped environments too ServiceNow+1.

Many organizations have built custom automation workflows using ServiceNow’s scripting capabilities and Scheduled Jobs. A common model includes:

Pulling remote update sets using script includes (leveraging the built-in Remote Instances functionality)

Auto‑previewing update sets

Generating preview reports

Auto‑committing sets with no errors—all optionally exposed via a UI for ease of use Microsoft Fabric Community+9ServiceNow+9ServiceNow+9.

Another community-shared architecture breaks deployments into stages:

Use “Stories” in Dev → Test → UAT → Prod pipelines

Scheduled jobs trigger every few minutes to preview and commit Update Sets from completed stories

Batching sets into larger bundles (e.g., Release-level batches) for final deployment to Prod ServiceNow+6ServiceNow+6ServiceNow+6.

[afielden]

Thanks for the info. Setting up a local app repo would be a great solution. I had a look for this 'app repo' app on the store, but couldn't locate it. The article you posted doesn't provide a specific link to this app. Do you know what it's called?

[Shashank_Jain]

@afielden ,

Go through this link and provide the feedback if this was helpful - https://www.servicenow.com/docs/bundle/xanadu-application-development/page/build/applications/task/i...