Exchange Website Hosting

The Projects page (Web Hosting) is where you create and manage the frontend websites your users visit. Each website is a project. Your exchange backend is set up separately on the Hosting page.

Who can manage websites

• Owners and admins can create, publish, delete and configure every project, including its domain, Git connection, App Links and access list.
• Other team members (tech, billing, business) only see projects an owner or admin has assigned to them on the project's Access tab. An assigned member can publish, unpublish and roll back that project, but can't change its domain, Git connection or App Links.
• If a member opens a project they're not assigned to, they see: "You don't have access to this project. Ask an admin to add you to it."

Creating a website project

The New Project button appears for owners and admins only. It stays disabled until your exchange backend is set up. If your backend isn't set up yet, the page says "Set up your exchange backend first to create frontend projects." with a link to hosting setup.

New Project offers two options:

1. Choose from Gallery: pick a ready-made template from the Crypto Gallery (see below).
2. Custom frontend setup: connect your own GitHub or GitLab repository. You enter a project name, the Git provider, the repository URL, a branch (default main) and an optional project path, which is a sub-directory for monorepos. Leave it empty for the repo root. Then click Create Project.

Project names must be unique within your exchange. If you reuse a name you'll see 'A project named "" already exists in this exchange.' Names of deleted projects can be reused. There is no fixed limit on the number of projects.

The Crypto Gallery

The Crypto Gallery (in the sidebar) lists ready-made exchange website templates. Filter by All, Exchange or Landing Page, or search.

Deployable templates:

• HollaEx Web v3 (featured): customizable without a rebuild through Site Studio. After it's published, you can change the theme, logos and page layouts and have them live in about five seconds. Its card has a Site Studio · AI pill, and its preview has Learn more about Site Studio. Requires the Enterprise plan. You can create and publish it during a free trial, but Site Studio itself unlocks only once the plan is paid. This is the recommended template for new websites: see HollaEx Web v3 & Site Studio.
• HollaEx Kit v2 Web: the classic web frontend. It doesn't support Site Studio. Branding, languages and UI themes are edited in Operator Controls after publishing.

Clicking Publish on a template opens a dialog where you name the site. Confirming creates the project. It does not put the site online yet: you're taken to the project page, where you still need to set up a domain and deploy the site. The official HollaEx templates don't need a GitHub connection.

Fork on GitHub opens GitHub in a new tab so you can copy the template into your own account and customize the code. You then create a Custom frontend project pointing at your fork.

Designs under Coming soon can't be published yet; some have a live demo you can try. I'm interested on one opens a support ticket to the HollaEx team, and nothing is published. You can also request design and frontend development help from the gallery footer.

The project page

Tabs: Git, Env Vars, Domain, App Links, Access, Settings. A red dot on a tab means it needs configuration. The official HollaEx templates hide the Git and Env Vars tabs because they don't need them.

The Service Info card shows the status, deployed commit, template, repository, branch, domain and Git connection. An Update available pill means the branch has newer commits than the live site. On the official HollaEx templates the pill reads Upgrade available: HollaEx has shipped newer code than your site runs.

On HollaEx Web v3 projects a Site Studio card above Service Info explains the visual editor and opens it with Open Site Studio. If Site Studio isn't available yet, the card says why: the Enterprise plan is required, the free trial doesn't include it, the plan isn't paid yet, the exchange isn't active, or the site has to be deployed to a domain first. For plan and payment reasons, members who can manage billing get a Go to Billing button; other members are asked to have the owner or a billing member sort it out. Collapse the card with the arrow; it stays collapsed in that browser.

Project statuses

Status	Meaning
Not deployed	Never published, or it was unpublished.
Deploying	A build and deploy is running (also while moving to a new domain).
Deployed	The site is live.
Rolling back	Switching to an earlier release.
Unpublishing	The site is being taken offline.
Failed	The last deploy, unpublish or domain change failed.

Deploy History shows each job as Queued, Running, Success or Failed, with the failure message under failed rows. A job that hasn't finished after 2 hours is marked failed automatically.

Deploying, upgrading and updating

The main button in the project header is named after what it will do:

Button	When it shows	What it does
Deploy site	The site has never been deployed, or was unpublished.	Builds the site and puts it online at your domain.
Upgrade	Official HollaEx template, and HollaEx has released newer code.	Rebuilds your site on the latest HollaEx code, with the newest features and fixes. Your domain and settings are kept.
Update site	Your own repository has newer commits on the deploy branch.	Pulls the latest commit, rebuilds and rolls it out to the live site.
Redeploy	The live site already runs the latest code. Shown as a smaller outline button.	Rebuilds the same version and rolls it out again.
Retry deploy	The last deploy failed.	Runs the deploy again.

While a job runs the button shows Deploying…, Upgrading…, Updating… or Redeploying…. Each opens a confirmation first. Upgrade and Update show the version change (deployed commit → latest commit). If the repository keeps a release-notes.json, the confirmation shows installed → target version and the highlights of every release in between; otherwise nothing extra is shown. A notice above Service Info ("A newer HollaEx Web v3 version is available." or "New code available on .") says an update is waiting, and More explains what it does. To start it, use Upgrade (or Update site) in the project header.

Deploying requires:

• a connected Git repository ("Connect GitHub first"), except for the official HollaEx templates;
• a domain ("Set up a domain first");
• a repository check that passes. If the branch or repo can't be found, fix it and click Re-check.

To rebuild without new code, use Redeploy. Changes to a project's environment variables also need a redeploy to take effect.

If the latest deploy fails, the live site keeps running the previous version. Fix the reported problem and click Retry deploy.

Release notes in the confirmation

Any repository can add release notes to its Upgrade and Update confirmations by keeping a release-notes.json file at its root:

{
  "schema_version": 1,
  "releases": [
    { "version": "1.2.0", "title": "Faster checkout", "highlights": ["Pay in one step.", "Clearer fees."] },
    { "version": "1.1.0", "title": "Dark mode", "highlights": ["Switch themes from the header."] }
  ]
}

• List releases newest first, with plain x.y.z versions (no v prefix, no pre-release tags) and no other fields.
• Each release needs a title (up to 120 characters) and 1–10 distinct highlights (up to 300 characters each). Plain text only: no < or >, no line breaks.
• The installed and new versions come from the version in package.json at each commit. Without a package.json, the newest entry in release-notes.json at that commit is used.
• The newest entry must match the new version. The confirmation shows every release after the installed version, up to and including the new one.
• If the file is missing or invalid, the new version isn't documented, or the version doesn't go up, the confirmation simply shows the commit change.

Auto-deploy on push

In Settings, Auto-deploy on push redeploys automatically whenever you push to the deploy branch. For official HollaEx templates the same toggle is called Auto upgrade and installs HollaEx's updates as they're released.

• The project must be published once before you can turn it on.
• The connected GitHub/GitLab account needs admin (GitHub) or Maintainer (GitLab) access to the repository, so the dashboard can register the webhook for you. You never paste a webhook URL.
• Pushes to other branches are ignored. Commits whose message contains [skip ci], [ci skip], [no ci], [skip actions] or [actions skip] are ignored.
• A push that arrives while another job is running is skipped, not queued. Push again, or click Update site (or Upgrade) manually.

Rolling back

In Deploy History, a Rollback button appears on earlier releases that are still retained. The dashboard keeps the latest 4 successful releases for the current domain. Rollback doesn't rebuild anything: it switches the live site to that release instantly.

Rollback isn't available:

• if the project isn't currently deployed;
• for releases made before the last domain change or unpublish;
• for older projects until they have been published once more (so release history exists).

If a rollback fails, the site stays on the version that was live.

Unpublishing and deleting

Unpublish (Settings → Project controls) takes the site offline. Visitors see a 404 or your domain's fallback. Your configuration, Git connection and environment variables are kept, so you can publish again later. App Links files are not removed by unpublishing.

Delete Project (Settings → Show danger zone) is for owners and admins. The project must be unpublished first. If it's still deployed, the dialog offers Unpublish first. You confirm by typing the project name. Deleting removes the configuration, Git connection, environment variables and deploy history, and can't be undone. A website that hosts a sub-path project can't be deleted until the sub-path project is removed or moved.

Git connection

On the Git tab, choose GitHub or GitLab (github.com and gitlab.com only), then click Connect.

• Organization repositories may show "Organization access restricted". An organization owner then needs to approve the HollaEx app in the organization's settings.
• "Token revoked or expired" means you need to reconnect.
• Disconnecting doesn't take the live site down, but future publishes fail until you reconnect.

Bundled (Legacy v2) website

Exchanges running the older bundled web frontend show it as a Bundled project, "Linked to Exchange backend". Its domain and lifecycle are managed from the Hosting page, not from Projects, and it doesn't support publish, unpublish or auto-deploy.