Externa uses a lean content versioning model: one published bag of field values plus optional draft_data. It is not Directus-style named version trees.

Collection items · Live Preview · Project settings

Enable

On the collection edit drawer, turn on Versioning. Editors then get Draft / Published workspaces on the item form.

Draft vs published

Workspace	What you edit	Save
Draft	`draft_data` JSON bag	Saves draft only; published values unchanged
Published	Live field values	Read-only when versioning is on — switch to Draft to edit

Badges on the item form (and a Draft chip on the items list) show whether an unpublished draft exists.

Publish (promote)

Publish copies draft_data into published field values, then clears the draft. Confirm before promote. Requires can-edit-collections and item write access.

Discard draft

Discard draft drops draft_data without touching published values. Confirm before discard. Same permission gate as Publish.

Browser localStorage “unsaved draft” (autosave while typing) is separate — use Discard browser draft on that banner.

List filter

On versioned collections, Has draft filters the items list to rows with unpublished draft_data.

Revisions

Every save / draft save / publish / discard / hard restore can record a revision snapshot. Open History on the item toolbar (or the full revisions page). Soft-apply compares fields; Hard restore writes immediately and clears any draft.

Retention (count / days) is configured per collection or as a project default — it prunes old rows; it does not hide the History entry point.

Scheduled publish / unpublish

On a versioned item form, set Publish at / Unpublish at (app timezone), then Save schedule. Badge shows Scheduled when a future publish_at is set. Cancel schedule clears both timestamps.

Due drafts are promoted by collections:process-schedules (every minute via Laravel scheduler).
Due unpublish_at soft-deletes the item (same as trash).
Requires a running scheduler (schedule:run / Compose scheduler) — see Operations.
Emit webhook item.published with scheduled: true on scheduled promote (Outbound webhooks).

Ops note

Versioning is editorial only. Public CMS API returns published values unless you use Live Preview with version=draft. Scheduled publish needs the scheduler process running.