I am planning to migrate an existing Prismic production repository to use slice machine. I have a few questions:
What is the status of the Slice Machine Upgrade tool? Is it still in beta or ready for production usage?
Is there a migration guide on how to integrate Slice Machine into an repository using Legacy custom types?
When initializing slice machine locally, does it make any changes to the production repository? I am concerned about any changes to production repository? I want changes to be throughly tested before releasing them to production.
Is there a business case to made why migrate to slice machine? Given lack of documentation on migration plan, I am not convinced slice machine is mature enough.
Status of the Slice Machine Upgrade Tool: The Slice Machine Upgrade tool is currently in beta. Although it is functional, it is recommended to use it in a controlled environment to avoid potential data loss during the migration process. Prismic continues to refine this tool, and while it has been integrated into many projects successfully, it is not yet considered completely stable for all scenarios​.
Migration Guide for Legacy Custom Types: As of now, we have not released a fully comprehensive migration guide for transitioning from Legacy custom types to Slice Machine. For this we recommend the upgrade tool and the migration API.
Impact of Initializing Slice Machine Locally: When you initialize Slice Machine locally, it primarily interacts with your local environment and should not make changes to your production repository directly. The idea is that you can develop and test slices locally before pushing any changes to your production environment. However, any changes pushed to the Prismic repository, after local testing, will affect the production setup. Therefore, thorough testing in a staging environment is highly recommended before deploying to production​.
Business Case for Migrating to Slice Machine: Migrating to Slice Machine can offer significant advantages, including more streamlined development workflows including versioning in Git, better integration with modern frameworks, and improved content modeling capabilities. If your current setup is stable and meets your needs, and especially if the cost and complexity of migration are high, it might be worth evaluating whether the benefits outweigh these challenges. Prismic is focusing future development on Slice Machine, so Legacy Builder will not receive further updates, which may influence your decision if you need ongoing feature support.
In summary, while Slice Machine represents the future of Prismic, careful consideration is needed before migrating, particularly in terms of stability and the current lack of comprehensive migration tools.