Workers Preview URL default behavior now matches workers.dev setting

We have updated the default behavior for Cloudflare Workers Preview URLs. Going forward, if a preview URL setting is not explicitly configured during deployment, its default behavior will automatically match the setting of your workers.dev subdomain.

This change is intended to provide a more intuitive and secure experience by aligning your preview URL's default state with your workers.dev configuration to prevent cases where a preview URL might remain public even after you disabled your workers.dev route.

What this means for you:

• If neither setting is configured: both the workers.dev route and the preview URL will default to enabled
• If your workers.dev route is enabled and you do not explicitly set Preview URLs to enabled or disabled: Preview URLs will default to enabled
• If your workers.dev route is disabled and you do not explicitly set Preview URLs to enabled or disabled: Preview URLs will default to disabled

You can override the default setting by explicitly enabling or disabling the preview URL in your Worker's configuration through the API, Dashboard, or Wrangler.

Wrangler Version Behavior

The default behavior depends on the version of Wrangler you are using. This new logic applies to the latest version. Here is a summary of the behavior across different versions:

• Before v4.34.0: Preview URLs defaulted to enabled, regardless of the workers.dev setting.
• v4.34.0 up to (but not including) v4.44.0: Preview URLs defaulted to disabled, regardless of the workers.dev setting.
• v4.44.0 or later: Preview URLs now default to matching your workers.dev setting.

Why we’re making this change

In July, we introduced preview URLs to Workers, which let you preview code changes before deploying to production. This made disabling your Worker’s workers.dev URL an ambiguous action — the preview URL, served as a subdomain of workers.dev (ex: preview-id-worker-name.account-name.workers.dev) would still be live even if you had disabled your Worker’s workers.dev route. If you misinterpreted what it meant to disable your workers.dev route, you might unintentionally leave preview URLs enabled when you didn’t mean to, and expose them to the public Internet.

To address this, we made a one-time update to disable preview URLs on existing Workers that had their workers.dev route disabled and changed the default behavior to be disabled for all new deployments where a preview URL setting was not explicitly configured.

While this change helped secure many customers, it was disruptive for customers who keep their workers.dev route enabled and actively use the preview functionality, as it now required them to explicitly enable preview URLs on every redeployment.This new, more intuitive behavior ensures that your preview URL settings align with your workers.dev configuration by default, providing a more secure and predictable experience.

Securing access to workers.dev and preview URL endpoints

To further secure your workers.dev subdomain and preview URL, you can enable Cloudflare Access with a single click in your Worker's settings to limit access to specific users or groups.