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Modeling software deployment
Modeling software deployment in HCL Launch includes configuring components and component processes and adding those components to applications. Then, you use processes to deploy the components to environments.
Components
Components represent deployable items along with user-defined processes that operate on them, usually by deploying them.
Component versions
Each time a component's artifacts are imported into the repository, including the first time, a separate version is stored in CodeStation. Versions can be assigned automatically by HCL Launch, applied manually, or come from a build server.

Modeling software deployment
Modeling software deployment in HCL Launch includes configuring components and component processes and adding those components to applications. Then, you use processes to deploy the components to environments.
- Components
  Components represent deployable items along with user-defined processes that operate on them, usually by deploying them.
  - Creating components
    A component consists of artifacts of a single source type and one or more processes. Component creation is the same for all source types, however; the content can be different.
  - Component processes
    A component process is a series of user-defined steps that operate on a component's artifacts.
  - Component versions
    Each time a component's artifacts are imported into the repository, including the first time, a separate version is stored in CodeStation. Versions can be assigned automatically by HCL Launch, applied manually, or come from a build server.
    - Tracking environment inventory for components
      You can track the environment inventory for each component by clicking the component and then going to the Usage tab.
    - Importing versions manually
      If the component does not import new versions automatically, you can import versions manually.
    - Deleting versions
      If specific component versions meet the criteria for deletion, you can delete them.
    - Downloading component version artifacts
      Artifacts are generated when an application process of a component version runs successfully.
    - Adding links to component version
      Component version links help you get information about what a particular version contains from various systems of record such as Anthill Pro, Jira, GitHub, and so on.
  - Component properties
    Components can have several types of properties. The server keeps track of changes to component properties as property versions.
  - Creating component manual tasks
    A component manual task interrupts a component process until manual intervention is done. To create a component manual task, add a manual step to a component process, and select a notification template.
  - Component templates
    With a component template, you can save and reuse component processes and properties and create components from them; template-based components inherit the template's properties and process.
  - Component change logs
    Change logs provide information about modifications to components.
  - Deleting components
    When a component is deleted, it cannot be activated later.
- Resources
  A resource is a logical deployment target that typically resolves to an agent and a user-defined construct that is based on the architectural model of HCL Launch.
- Applications
  Applications are responsible for bringing together all the components that must be deployed together.
- Application environments
  An environment is a user-defined collection of resources that hosts an application.
- Application templates
  With an application template, you can save and reuse a collection of resources, environments, processes, and tagged components or component templates to create a standardized application.
- Application processes
  Application processes, like component processes, are created with the process editor. You use application processes to deploy or to roll back components.
- Application blueprints
  An application blueprint maps application components to a resource template. When you create an environment or provision one from the cloud, you can use the blueprint as a model.
- Snapshots
  A snapshot is a collection of specific versions of components and processes. Typically, a snapshot represents a set of component versions that are known to work together. In most cases, snapshots include all of the components in an application.
- Creating manual application tasks
  A manual application task interrupts an application process until manual intervention is done. To create a manual task, add a manual step to an application process and select a notification template.
- Approval process
  You can add approval requirements to deployments. Deployments with approvals cannot be completed until all approvers respond. Approvers can respond to requests on the Work Items tab, or by email.
- Inventories
  You use different inventories to track installed components and properties in HCL Launch elements.
- Processes
  Processes are automated tasks that run on agents.
- Statuses
  Create and apply statuses to track component inventory states or to track component versions in environments and resources.
- Properties
  Properties are variables that store information about many different elements, including components, environments, processes, and applications. You can also set global properties for the system.
- Tags
  A tag is a user-defined, shared, short label that you use to classify, view, and conduct operations on objects such as applications, components, agents, and resources.
- Webhooks
  Using the webhooks, you can send text-based responses to users in messaging platform such as MS Teams and Slack when a specific event occurs during deployment process.
- Secret Stores
  Allows HCL Launch to retrieve credentials of individual servers from the Vault and authenticates a plug-in step in the deployment process.

Component versions

Each time a component's artifacts are imported into the repository, including the first time, a separate version is stored in CodeStation. Versions can be assigned automatically by HCL Launch, applied manually, or come from a build server.

Every time a component's artifacts are modified and imported, a new version of the component is created and an entry is made in the Component Version Import log. So a component might have several versions in CodeStation, and each version is unique.

Note: By default, the component version import log is cleaned up every 24 hours. Only the most recent 100 entries are maintained in the log after cleanup.

Artifacts can be imported automatically or manually. By default, a complete copy of an artifact's content is imported into CodeStation. When you copy the artifact to CodeStation, the original artifact content is never modified.

A version can be full or incremental. A full version contains all component artifacts; an incremental version contains only artifacts that are different from the previous version. When performing an incremental import you only need to upload only the changed artifacts. Artifacts that are the same as the base version do not need to be uploaded.

Storing artifacts in CodeStation provides several benefits, such as tamper-proof storage, and the ability to review and validate artifacts with the HCL Launch user interface. But if you have storage concerns or use a tool like Maven, you can limit CodeStation to using references to the artifacts instead of copying them into CodeStation.

Note: Do not give component versions the name latest, latestVersion, or newest. These names are reserved to represent the most recently created version for certain CLI commands, including requestApplicationProcess and createSnapshot. You cannot use these keywords to represent component versions in the web interface.