Right after you remix
The five-minute housekeeping pass. Do this before you change anything visual — it makes every later step (rebrand, payments, deploy) work without surprises.
Enable Lovable Cloud so your data persists
Out of the box, a fresh remix has no database of its own — sign-ups, orders, uploads, and form submissions have nowhere to go. Turning on Lovable Cloud gives your build its own private backend (database, auth, file storage) in one click. Without this, nothing your users do will save.
- ✓Cloud is enabled on your remixed project
- ✓You can open the Backend panel and see empty tables (products, profiles, etc.)
- ✓A test signup from the live preview creates a row in the users table
Rename the project & give it a clean URL slug
The remix inherits the original name. Rename it now so your preview URL, GitHub repo, and published domain all match your brand.
Connect GitHub (your safety net)
Every change you or Lovable makes will be committed to your own GitHub repo. This is your undo button for big mistakes, and it's required if you ever want to self-host or hand the codebase to a developer.
- ✓GitHub is connected from Project Settings → Integrations
- ✓You can see commits flowing into your new repo as you edit
- ✓The repo is private (unless you want it public)
Audit secrets & environment variables
The original template may have placeholder API keys (Stripe test keys, AI provider keys, webhook secrets). Replace any inherited values with your own before you publish — otherwise charges, emails, or API calls could route to the original seller.
Take a baseline snapshot
Before you start rebranding, publish once (or just note the current preview). If a later edit breaks the layout, you'll have a known-good version to roll back to from the Version History panel.
- ✓Cloud enabled, project renamed, GitHub connected, secrets owned by you
- ✓A baseline version is bookmarked in Version History
- ✓You can sign up, log in, and submit forms on the preview without errors