---
schema_version: "1"
id: 23ac06bf4e47459301649be40f978f37606f7c17a418c7858b4872beaf886bc8
title: Application Lifecycle Management Journey with Lifecycle Center
collection: admin
version: current
locale: en-us
portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/platform/264-0-0/next_gen_devops_center_alm_journey.md
canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.next_gen_devops_center_alm_journey.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5
source_site: help.salesforce.com
content_type: documentation
content_hash: 7d90c9ab838e55bce2a627bc572c52d387b5422c19e7863cd15d53c3e3e85ba2
description: Here's a high-level overview of your Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) journey. Start by setting up Lifecycle Center (formerly next-generation DevOps Center), then build your apps in your development environment, and finally, deploy your changes with Lifecycle Center.
products:
  - Salesforce Platform
release: "264"
---
# Application Lifecycle Management Journey with Lifecycle Center

Here's a high-level overview of your Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) journey. Start by setting up Lifecycle Center (formerly next-generation DevOps Center), then build your apps in your development environment, and finally, deploy your changes with Lifecycle Center.

### Required Editions

<table class="slds-table slds-table_bordered slds-max-medium-table_stacked slds-m-bottom_small edition"><colgroup><col></colgroup><tbody><tr class=""><td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">Available in: Lightning Experience in <strong>Professional</strong> (API access required), <strong>Enterprise</strong>, <strong>Performance</strong>, <strong>Unlimited</strong>, and <strong>Developer</strong> Editions</td></tr></tbody><colgroup><col></colgroup><tbody><tr class=""><td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">Not Available in: <strong>Government Cloud Plus</strong>. Contact your Salesforce account executive for more details.</td></tr></tbody><colgroup><col></colgroup><tbody><tr class=""><td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">Not available in: <strong>EU Operating</strong> Zone. EU Operating zone is a special paid offering that provides an enhanced level of data residency commitment. Lifecycle Center <em>is</em> supported in orgs in the EU that aren't part of EU OZ, per standard product terms and conditions.</td></tr></tbody></table>

<table class="slds-table slds-table_bordered slds-max-medium-table_stacked slds-m-bottom_small permission">
        <colgroup>
          <col style="width:50%">
          <col style="width:50%">
        </colgroup>
        <thead class="slds-text-title_caps ">
          <tr class="">
            <th scope="colgroup" class="slds-cell-wrap" colspan="2" style="text-align:center;vertical-align:top;" id="d13504e106">User Permissions Needed</th>
          </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="User Permissions Needed" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d13504e106 ">To set up Lifecycle Center:</td>

            <td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d13504e106 ">Lifecycle Center Admin</td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="User Permissions Needed" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d13504e106 ">To commit and review changes:</td>

            <td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d13504e106 ">Customize Application in your development org and Lifecycle Center User in Lifecycle Center
              Hub org</td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="User Permissions Needed" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d13504e106 ">To promote work items through the pipeline:</td>

            <td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d13504e106 ">Lifecycle Center Deployment Manager</td>

          </tr>
        </tbody>
      </table>

## Set Up Lifecycle Center

Lifecycle Center is central to your ALM journey. If you're a new user, follow these steps to get started.

1. Access Lifecycle Center.
    
    See [Access Lifecycle Center](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_enable_for_users.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Lifecycle Center is enabled by default in your Salesforce org, so you don't have to turn it on. You can open it directly from the App Launcher. The first time you open it, accept the DX Tools terms and conditions.").
2. Add team members and assign the required user permissions.
    
    See [Add Team Members as Users in the Lifecycle Center Hub Org](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_add_team_members.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Add any team members who need access to Lifecycle Center Hub org. For each team member, specify the appropriate license and profile based on their role.") and [Assign Lifecycle Center Permission Sets](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_assign_permissions.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Grant team members access to Lifecycle Center features and workflows by assigning the appropriate permission sets.").
3. Set up your source control.
    
    See [Set Up Your Source Control](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_set_your_source_control.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Configure your GitHub repository to store project files and manage team access.").
4. (Optional) Configure .forceignore file to exclude metadata. See [Exclude Metadata with the .forceignore File](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_exclude_metadata_with_forceignore.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Use the .forceignore file to exclude files or metadata types that you don’t want to commit to the source control or deploy to the target org in your release pipeline. This file makes sure that DX Inspector and Lifecycle Center don’t push or pull unnecessary files, such as IDE configuration files, local test data, or specific profiles, from the development environment.")
5. Create a project.
    
    See [Create a Lifecycle Center Project](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_create_project.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Create a project to serve as the central workspace for your team’s change management collaboration.").
6. Build your pipeline.
    
    See [Build Your Pipeline](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_build_pipeline.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Define the sequence of stages for your release lifecycle by building a pipeline in Lifecycle Center.").
7. Create and assign a work item.
    
    See [Create and Assign Work Items](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_create_assign_work_items.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Use work items to track the progress of changes related to specific objectives, such as user stories or issue fixes. Work items help teams manage changes and releases by providing visibility into the status and progress of changes.").
8. (Optional) Integrate Salesforce Agentforce Vibes IDE.
    
    See [Integrate Agentforce Vibes IDE with Lifecycle Center](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_integrate_agentforce_vibes.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Agentforce Vibes IDE provides a modern developer experience and comes with everything you need to work with Salesforce DX MCP Server and Lifecycle Center tools (previously DevOps Center tools). We recommend setting up Agentforce Vibes IDE if you want to experience the capabilities of the MCP server. ").
9. Set up Salesforce DX Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server.
    
    See [Access Lifecycle Center MCP Tools](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_mcp_access_tools.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Set up Salesforce DX MCP Server for use with Agentforce Vibes IDE, integrated with Agentforce Vibes Extension as the MCP client. Use prompts in Agentforce, a part of Agentforce Vibes Extension, to do common DevOps tasks, like managing work items, and resolving merge conflicts.").
    
    Interested in Lifecycle Center MCP tools in Salesforce DX MCP Server? You can use Lifecycle Center MCP tools to manage your Lifecycle Center tasks with natural language prompts. For example, state what you want to do, such as "Create a new feature branch for WI-000042." See [Lifecycle Center MCP Tools and Skills](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_mcp_tools.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Accelerate your DevOps application lifecycle with Lifecycle Center MCP tools and skills. Use natural-language prompts in your IDE to interact with Lifecycle Center, or use skills to automate release workflows. MCP tools and skills simplify and standardize Lifecycle Center workflows.").

## Work in Your Development Environment

Automatically track app building and configuration changes in your development environment using DX Inspector. DX Inspector provides quick access to metadata change tracking and visualization. It's available at the top of a page or builder in your Salesforce sandbox, scratch org, or Developer Edition org.

![Note](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-platform-devops_center-264-0-0-production-enus/166010c3-4c34-4087-92ad-aea917baf524/images/icon_note.png)

Note Committing changes and creating change requests are now available directly within your development environment instead of Lifecycle Center. This helps you manage metadata and data changes without leaving your development org.

1. Build apps or make changes directly in your development environment.
    
    Source tracking automatically tracks your changes and lists them on the Change Management tab in DX Inspector. See [Develop and Deploy with DX Inspector](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.develop_and_deploy_with_dx_inspector.htm&language=en_US).
2. Commit or deploy changes.
    
    - With Lifecycle Center connection:
    
    1. Commit changes: Associate your changes with a work item and commit them to the source control repository.
        
        See [Commit Changes to Source Repository](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.commit_changes_dx_inspector.htm&language=en_US).
    2. Start review: On the Change Management tab in DX Inspector, start a review process.
        
        See [Create a Change Request.](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_create_change_request.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Start a peer review of your work item by creating a change request directly from DX Inspector.")
    3. Team collaboration: After your team member reviews and approves the work item, the work item moves into Ready to Promote status.
        
        See [Review Changes with Team Members](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_review_changes.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "After you open a pull request in your source control repository, your team members and collaborators can add comments about the changes.").
    
    - Without a Lifecycle Center connection, solo Salesforce admins or smaller teams can move metadata and data together for direct deployment to a target org. See [Deploy Metadata and Data from DX Inspector](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.metadata_and_data_deployment.htm&type=5&language=en_US).

## Enforce Quality with Lifecycle Center Testing

Lifecycle Center Testing embeds automated quality enforcement directly into your pipeline — running tests when reviews are created and before every promotion into the next stage.

1. Set up Lifecycle Center Testing.
    
    See [Set Up Lifecycle Center Testing](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_testing_setup.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Configure Lifecycle Center Testing to enforce quality at every stage of your pipeline, from the first review to the final promotion into production.").
2. Shift-left quality checks when a developer creates a review in DX Inspector.
    
    See [Shift-Left Testing for Review Events](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_testing_shift_left_review_events.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Lifecycle Center Testing automatically runs assigned test suites when a developer creates a review in DX Inspector, catching issues early before changes advance through the pipeline.").
3. Quality checks before a work item is promoted to the next pipeline stage.
    
    See [Testing Before Promotion to the Next Stage](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_testing_before_promotion.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Lifecycle Center Testing automatically runs assigned test suites before a work item advances to the next pipeline stage, ensuring only validated changes reach Integration, Staging, and Production.").
4. Run tests manually when automated testing doesn't start or needs a targeted follow-up.
    
    See [On-Demand Testing for Review Events](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_testing_on_demand_review_events.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Manually trigger a test run for a review event when automated testing has failed or when you need to verify test results before attempting a promotion.") and [On-Demand Testing for Pre-Promotion Events](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_testing_on_demand_pre_promotion.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "If a Pre-Promotion Event fails, on-demand testing lets you manually verify whether tests are now passing. A new automated execution runs when the promotion is attempted again. This is most commonly used when a promotion is blocked by a failed quality gate and you need to re-trigger testing after resolving the underlying issue.").

## Promote Work Items in Lifecycle Center

After your team member approves the work item, you can move it through your pipeline in Lifecycle Center.

1. When ready, promote the work items to the next stage in your pipeline.
    
    See [Promote Work Items](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_promote_work_items.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Move your work items through a predefined sequence of pipeline stages, guiding them from development to production. ").
    
    Lifecycle Center MCP tools manage the promotion for you. For example, use the prompt, "Promote Lifecycle Center WI-000042 to the UAT stage." Salesforce DX MCP Server runs all the necessary steps for pipeline deployment.
2. When merge conflicts occur, you can use Lifecycle Center MCP tools to resolve them instead of fixing them manually.
    
    Describe the ‌outcome in natural language prompts, and Salesforce DX MCP Server analyzes and resolves the merge conflicts for you. See [Resolve Merge Conflicts](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_mcp_resolve_merge_conflicts.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Detect, analyze, and resolve merge conflicts directly within your workflow. You can start this process using the Resolve with Agentforce option in the Lifecycle Center UI, which opens the Agentforce Vibes IDE with the Agentforce Vibes Extension and adds the conflict details to your prompt.").