Why Make.com Needs Proper Version Control
Introduction
If you have ever opened a Make.com scenario to “just tweak one thing”, only to discover later that something unrelated has stopped working, you are not alone. For many small teams, low-code automation begins as a productivity win and quietly evolves into critical infrastructure — without anyone quite noticing when that transition happened.
This matters more now than it did a few years ago. Tools like Make.com (formerly Integromat) and Adobe Fusion have matured rapidly. They are no longer just personal productivity tools; they are running order fulfilment, payments, reporting, onboarding, and customer communications for thousands of businesses. As reliance grows, the weaknesses in how changes are managed become harder to ignore.
One of the most common gaps is version control — not in the narrow software engineering sense, but in the broader ability to understand what changed, when, why, and with what impact.
The Core Problem
At its heart, version control is about managing change safely. In traditional software engineering, this is solved with source control systems, review processes, and environments. In low-code automation platforms, the picture is less clear.
Make.com does provide scenario history, blueprints, and basic rollback options. These are useful, but they are not the same as a deliberate version control strategy. They are primarily technical artefacts, not governance tools.
The problem is not that Make.com is “missing” a feature. The problem is that teams often misunderstand what version control is supposed to achieve in an automation context.
In small businesses, this usually shows up as:
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Changes made directly in live scenarios
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No shared understanding of what a scenario is meant to do
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No record of why a change was introduced
In larger or more regulated environments, the issues are more formal:
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Inability to demonstrate control over production changes
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No clear separation between testing and live operations
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Operational risk concentrated in a single builder’s head
Low-code tools sit in an awkward middle ground. They feel approachable and visual, which encourages experimentation. At the same time, they behave like backend systems once they are connected to payment providers, CRMs, or internal databases.
Without structure, that tension eventually breaks.
Why It Becomes a Bigger Issue Over Time
Early on, a fragile automation is an inconvenience. Later, it is a business risk.
There are a few predictable pressure points where lack of version control becomes painful.
Scale and complexity
As scenarios grow, they accumulate logic: branches, error handlers, data transformations, and edge cases. Without a clear sense of versioning, it becomes difficult to answer simple questions:
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Was this behaviour intentional?
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Did this change last month or last year?
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What else depends on this scenario?
At this stage, teams often become afraid to touch automations at all. Ironically, the tool designed to enable agility starts to slow the business down.
Team size and collaboration
The moment more than one person edits scenarios, implicit knowledge breaks down. One builder’s “small fix” is another person’s unexplained outage.
This is where platform-level change history stops being enough. Knowing that something changed is not the same as knowing why it changed, or whether it was reviewed.
Business reliance and governance
Once automations are tied directly to revenue, compliance, or customer experience, informal practices stop being defensible. This is especially true in finance, healthcare, and regulated e-commerce, but it applies equally to any business that cannot afford silent failures.
At this point, version control is no longer a “nice to have”. It is part of basic operational hygiene.
Practical Ways to Approach the Problem
The goal is not to turn Make.com into a full software engineering toolchain. That would be unnecessary and counterproductive for most SMEs. Instead, the aim is to borrow the principles of version control and apply them proportionately.
Treat automations as production systems
The most important shift is conceptual. If a scenario runs unattended and affects customers or money, it is a production system — regardless of how it was built.
This framing changes behaviour. Changes become something to manage deliberately, not something to experiment with casually in live environments.
Separate environments conceptually
You do not need complex infrastructure to benefit from dev, test, and prod thinking. Even a lightweight separation — such as duplicate scenarios or accounts used for testing — introduces a critical safety buffer.
The key idea is simple: new behaviour should be exercised somewhere safe before it reaches real data or customers.
Make changes visible and reviewable
Version control is as much about communication as it is about rollback. A basic change log, written in plain language, often delivers more value than a technical diff.
Effective teams ensure that:
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Every meaningful change has a reason
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Someone else can understand that reason later
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Non-technical stakeholders can follow what is happening at a high level
This does not require formal pull requests, but it does require discipline.
Think in versions, not edits
Instead of viewing a scenario as a single mutable object, treat it as a series of versions. Each version represents a stable understanding of how the automation behaves.
This mindset makes rollback a conscious decision rather than a panic response. It also encourages builders to group related changes together, rather than making constant small tweaks in production.
Document intent, not mechanics
Good version control documentation explains why an automation exists and what problem it solves, not just how the modules are connected.
This is particularly important in low-code environments, where visual clarity can hide conceptual complexity.
Common Mistakes
Even well-intentioned teams often fall into predictable traps.
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Relying entirely on platform history
Platform logs show what changed, but rarely why. That context matters. -
Editing live scenarios directly
This feels efficient until something breaks and there is no safe reference point. -
Single-person ownership
When only one person understands the automations, version control becomes personal memory — which does not scale. -
Over-engineering too early
Introducing heavyweight processes before the business needs them creates friction without reducing risk. -
Ignoring non-technical users
Operations and support teams are often affected by automation changes, yet excluded from change awareness.
When to Introduce More Structure
There is no universal threshold, but there are clear signals.
You should start thinking seriously about version control and governance when:
- Automations directly affect revenue, compliance, or customer trust
- More than one person edits scenarios
- You are afraid to change existing automations
- You cannot easily explain what would happen if a scenario failed
For very small teams, lightweight practices are usually enough. As teams grow, structure should be added gradually and intentionally — not as an emergency response to a major incident.
In regulated or high-risk contexts, expectations will be higher from the outset. In those cases, borrowing selectively from enterprise engineering practices is often the safest route.
Conclusion
Make.com and similar low-code automation platforms are powerful precisely because they lower the barrier to building complex systems. That power, however, does not remove the need for discipline around change.
Proper version control in low-code automation is not about copying software engineering dogma. It is about visibility, safety, and shared understanding. When applied proportionately, it enables teams to move faster with less risk — not slower.
If you are running automation at scale and finding this challenging, it is worth stepping back and introducing structure deliberately rather than reactively.