Release states

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Release states

    In ServiceNow's release management, a release progresses through several defined states, each reflecting its current phase in the deployment process. Understanding these states enables effective planning, monitoring, and troubleshooting of releases.

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    Release States and Their Significance

    • Draft: The initial state where releases are created but inactive. Releases in Draft do not trigger any deployment actions and cannot be targeted by deployment requests. This allows scheduling future releases which must be manually activated.
    • Active: The release is open and awaiting the freeze time. Deployment requests attached to the release can be added or removed, and are typically in assessing or reconciling stages.
    • Preparing: Deployment requests are frozen and validated to be ready for deployment; non-ready requests are deferred. The release ordering is generated, and deployment requests can only be removed by a release administrator. This state is triggered by the scheduler based on the freeze time or linked change management record.
    • Ready for Release: All deployment requests are finalized with no additions or removals allowed. The release has passed all validations and manual pipeline playbook steps are complete, making it eligible for deployment.
    • Deploying: The release is actively deploying, finalizing the transfer of build artifacts to the destination instance. This state is scheduler-driven based on the release time or associated change management record.
    • Reconciling: Indicates deployment issues requiring manual intervention, such as preview conflicts, which generate deployment tasks in the playbook for resolution.
    • Complete: The release has successfully finished without issues.
    • Cancelled: The deployment was manually stopped before starting.
    • Failed: Deployment could not be completed successfully due to issues like retrieval failures, out-of-order update set commits, or unexpected commits.

    Practical Application for ServiceNow Customers

    By recognizing these release states, ServiceNow customers can better manage release lifecycles, schedule deployments accurately, and respond promptly to deployment issues. The states provide clarity on when changes can be made, when deployments are frozen, and when manual interventions are necessary, improving release governance and reducing deployment risks.

    A release might be in one of several different states during the release process.

    State Description
    Draft The initial state of a release. ReleaseOps doesn't act on any release in this state, regardless of the release schedule set. Draft releases don't appear in a deployment request as a target. This enables the creation of schedules into the future, but they must be manually moved into the Active state before deployment requests can be added and deployed.
    Active

    The release is open in this state, and waiting for the freeze time to arrive. While in this state, attached deployment requests are actively in the Assessing or Reconciling state.

    Deployment requests can still be added at this point, or removed (by the developer or release admin).
    Preparing

    The deployment is frozen. All deployment requests attached to the release are validated to be Ready for Deployment, or else they’re deferred. The release ordering has been generated. A release administrator can remove a deployment request.

    This change of state is derived from the scheduler based on the freeze time.
    Note:
    If the release is associated with a change management record, the release time is determined by that change management record.
    Ready for Release

    All deployment requests are finalized. No deployment requests can be added to or removed from the release, and the release has passed all checks and is eligible for deployment. Any manual steps within the pipeline playbook have been completed.
    Deploying

    The act of finalizing the move of all build artifacts to the destination instance. This change of state is derived from the scheduler, based on the release time.

    Note:
    If the release is associated with a change management record, the release time is determined by that change management record.
    Reconciling There was a problem with at least one deployment request in the release that requires manual intervention. From the playbook, a deployment task will be created for a preview conflict.
    Complete The release completed without issue.
    Cancelled

    The deployment of the release was manually canceled before commencement.
    Failed

    The deployment was either unable to be completed or completed with issues.

    Common reasons for deployment failure include:

    • An update set is unable to be retrieved.
    • An update set that was planned to be retrieved was already retrieved and committed. The commitment is deemed a failure as the defined order of update set deployments has been broken (unless this update set was the first in the ordering).
    • An update set was committed unexpectedly after retrieval.