> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.slideless.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Presentation lifecycle

> A deck has exactly two states: it exists, or it's deleted. Sharing, unsharing, and collaboration happen on top.

In v0.5, a presentation has two states:

* **Exists** — it's in Firestore, its manifests + assets are in GCS, and anyone with access (owner or active dev) can pull it.
* **Deleted** — the Firestore doc is gone, every blob under `shared_presentations/<id>/` has been removed, every collaborator row is dropped. Irreversible.

There is no archive concept anymore. Archive used to double as "stop being public" AND "soft delete" — the v0.5 split is cleaner:

## State transitions

```
                 push (new)
                      │
                      ▼
               ┌──────────────┐
               │ Unshared     │ ◄────┐ unshare
               │ (tokens: {}) │      │
               └──────┬───────┘      │
                      │ share        │
                      ▼              │
               ┌──────────────┐      │
               │ Shared       │──────┘
               │ (≥1 token)   │
               └──────┬───────┘
                      │ delete
                      ▼
               ┌──────────────┐
               │ Deleted      │
               │ (gone)       │
               └──────────────┘
```

| Action                     | What happens                                                                |
| -------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `push` (first time)        | Creates the deck in state `Unshared`. No viewer URL exists yet.             |
| `push` (subsequent)        | Bumps the version. No effect on sharing state.                              |
| `share <id>`               | Mints a viewer token. Moves deck to `Shared`.                               |
| `unshare <id>`             | Revokes all tokens. Moves deck back to `Unshared`.                          |
| `unshare <id> --token <t>` | Revokes one token. State depends on whether any other tokens remain active. |
| `delete <id>`              | Wipes the deck. Moves to `Deleted`.                                         |

## Why no archive?

Archive in v0.1–v0.4 meant "this deck is soft-deleted; you can't push to it, its URLs return 404, but the data is kept in case you want to restore it." Two problems:

1. It blocked owners from pushing, which broke the "I pushed, now I want to stop it being public" use case. They had to unshare AND unarchive to keep working.
2. Restore was never implemented. Archive was in practice "deleted but lingering."

Splitting into `unshare` (revoke tokens, keep the deck fully functional for editing) and `delete` (hard remove) gives each operation one clean job.

## What about "shared with me"?

Having dev access to a deck (see [Collaboration](/concepts/collaboration)) is independent of the deck's own lifecycle. A shared deck can be in `Unshared` state — collaborators can still push and pull. They see it in `slideless list` with `role: 'dev'`.

When the owner `delete`s a deck, every collaborator row is dropped and the deck disappears from collaborators' `list`.