Snapshots

A Snapshot is an immutable, versioned copy of the entire proxy configuration at a point in time. Snapshots are how Vrata implements safe, atomic configuration updates with instant rollback.

Why snapshots exist

Most proxies apply changes immediately — you push a new route and it’s live. If the config is wrong, traffic breaks.

Vrata separates editing from deploying. You create, update, and delete entities via the API — but nothing reaches the running proxies until you explicitly capture a snapshot and activate it. This gives you:

• Atomic updates — all changes go live at once, or none do
• Instant rollback — activate any previous snapshot in one API call
• Audit trail — every snapshot is a named, timestamped record of what was deployed
• Safe experimentation — make changes, review them, then decide whether to deploy

The flow

Edit → Capture → Activate → (optional) Rollback

1. Edit — create/update/delete routes, destinations, middlewares, listeners, groups via the API. Changes are staged.
2. Capture — POST /api/v1/snapshots takes a point-in-time copy of all current entities.
3. Activate — POST /api/v1/snapshots/{id}/activate pushes the snapshot to all connected proxies via SSE.
4. Rollback — activate any previous snapshot. One call, instant. See Rollback.

What’s inside a snapshot

A snapshot is a complete, self-contained JSON document containing all Listeners, Destinations, Routes, RouteGroups, and Middlewares. The proxy doesn’t need access to the database — it only needs the snapshot.

How proxies receive snapshots

The control plane serves an SSE stream at GET /sync/snapshot. Proxy-mode instances connect and receive the active snapshot immediately, plus any future activations. If a proxy restarts, it reconnects and gets the current snapshot automatically.