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You own your code: everything Iron Octopus builds for you belongs to you. Iron Octopus keeps it in a repository it manages for each project, so you don’t need a GitHub account or a developer to start, and you can take the code to your own GitHub whenever you like.

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Where it’s kept

When you create a project, Iron Octopus creates a private repository for it. These repositories are hosted on GitHub, on Iron Octopus’s account, and managed entirely by Iron Octopus. You don’t log in to them or manage access to them. Project settings › Repositories shows the project’s repository.

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How branches work

Work never reaches the main branch until you release it. Releasing creates a pull request from the feature branch and merges it into main. If two features change the same code, the second release stops on the conflict instead of overwriting the first.

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Take your code with you

You can copy your code to a GitHub repository you own at any time:
  • Export a feature’s code, with its history, to a branch in your repository. See export the code.
  • Import a branch from your repository into Iron Octopus, for example to bring in an existing app. See import a branch.
Both need GitHub connected to your workspace. See connect GitHub.

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If you leave

When your subscription ends, you have 30 days to export your code. Iron Octopus will help you move the repositories to an account you control if you ask. After that, your code and content are deleted from Iron Octopus’s systems within a further 30 days, and from backups within 90 days. See security.

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What Iron Octopus doesn’t do with your code

  • It doesn’t use it to train AI models, and it doesn’t let its AI providers train on it.
  • It doesn’t deploy it. Releasing adds a feature to the main branch. Deploying your app is up to you.
  • It doesn’t push to your own repositories unless you export to them.