Archiving a site

The person says: “The old venue closed; take its site down but keep everything.”

An archived site shows visitors a plain “this site is archived” page, takes no changes, and stops counting as a production site; its content, media and history are kept, and restoring it puts back the version that was live.

The loop

1. Empress:site_status — a staged release or open change set on it will not go live while it is archived; say so.
2. Empress:site_preview — target: "live": a last look, for the person’s record.
3. Empress:site_call — tool: "empress.site_archive", args: { reason }; confirm: true once the person agreed.
4. Empress:whoami — sites: "archived" lists it now.
5. Empress:site_call — tool: "empress.site_restore", when the person wants it back.

Judgment

• Archive before delete. A person who says “delete” usually means “take it down”; offer the archive first (see deleting-a-site).
• Visitors see a holding page. Tell the person before, not after.