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You need a root key with the permissions listed on this page. Create one in the dashboard under Settings > Root Keys. See Permission reference for every permission.
Start a preview deployment that was stopped with stop-deployment, so it serves traffic again. Nothing is rebuilt, and it keeps the configuration it had. It must be in a preview , because production deployments can’t be stopped. You don’t need to wait for stopped: a deployment that’s still shutting down can be started right away. The command returns before the deployment is back. Poll get-deployment until the status is ready. Starting a deployment needs an active Compute plan. Without one the API answers 412 with The workspace has no active Compute plan. A workspace over its Compute spend cap gets The workspace is suspended by its Compute spend cap. Raise the spend limit to resume. See Compute plans.

Usage

Flags

string
required
ID of the stopped deployment to start.

Shared flags

Every unkey api command accepts these; CLI output and shared flags describes them in full.
string
A JSON document sent as the request body instead of building it from the flags above. It is mutually exclusive with the request-building flags, and unknown fields are rejected locally. See Send a raw body.
string
Root key for the request. Falls back to UNKEY_ROOT_KEY, then to the config file written by unkey auth login. See CLI authentication.
string
default:"https://api.unkey.com"
Base URL of the API. Falls back to UNKEY_API_BASE_URL. You don’t normally need to set it.
string
default:"~/.unkey/config.toml"
Path of the TOML file that unkey auth login writes. Falls back to UNKEY_CONFIG.
string
Output format. Falls back to UNKEY_OUTPUT. Set json to print the full response envelope (meta and data) for piping; any other value prints the request ID followed by data.

Required permissions

Your root key needs one of:
  • environment.*.start_deployment (any environment)
  • environment.<environment_id>.start_deployment (a specific environment)
If the deployment doesn’t exist or your key doesn’t have the permission, you get the same 404: The requested deployment does not exist. See Root key permissions for the full catalog.

Examples

Start a stopped deployment:
Send the request body as JSON:

API endpoint

The command calls POST /v2/deployments.startDeployment and prints its response. The request fields carry the same names as the flags in camelCase, which is the shape --body expects.

Production and preview

Stop and start in preview environments and the automatic stop timers.
Last modified on September 29, 2026