[Bug Report] Builder API deploy copies CustomEntities despite preservation being enabled

[moondory77]

Hi BrainCloud Team.
We observed dev → staging metadata deployments overwriting target CustomEntity data despite these settings:

{
  "components": {
    "meta": true,
    "customEntities": false
  },
  "options": {
    "meta": {
      "excludes": {
        "migratableCustomEntities": true
      }
    }
  }
}

Relevant fields only; customEntityTypes was omitted.

The target portal also logged preserveMigratableCustomEntities: true, but previously different
, and CustomEntity data became identical between environments.

Affected deployments — September 11, 2026

• Source: 15389 (stylz-development)
• Target: 15538 (stylz-staging)
• Task IDs:
  • e727b5e7-67b4-4f10-9d24-a8651777a7d5
  • 238604d4-0db4-43fe-af29-7359a5e2a6c7

Workaround verified

We repeated the deployment with the same component/exclusion settings, adding options.meta.customEntityTypes: [].

Task: 74649043-787e-4f2e-b8c5-99f7cfafb465

This time, a deliberately introduced dev/staging PAGE difference remained after deployment. Before/after exports confirmed that all 85 exported CustomEntity
records across eight types, plus their configurations, remained unchanged in each app.

Could you investigate why preservation did not work when customEntityTypes was omitted, and confirm whether explicitly passing an empty array is the supported
workaround?

The original observations are supported by application comparisons and portal logs; the workaround test additionally includes raw before/after exports.