Configuration Model

Short definition

An Environment is a boundary around a set of deploy-time configuration, for example development, staging, or production. A resource can be deployed under different environments; each deployment reads the target environment’s configuration at that moment and saves it as an immutable snapshot.

Why this concept exists

Without an Environment, staging’s experimental configuration could pollute production at any time — and conversely, an urgent production config fix couldn’t be made without also affecting staging. An Environment gives “which layer of reality does this configuration belong to” a clear boundary.

Environment lifecycle

Operation	Effect
Rename	Only changes the name — doesn’t affect the environment id, variables, resources, deployments, domains, or certificates
Lock	Keeps all data, but blocks new variable writes, promotions, new resource creation, and new deployment admission
Unlock	Returns to active, so writes and deployments can continue
Archive	Keeps all history, is a retirement state, and cannot be restored by unlocking
Clone	Creates a new environment in the same project and copies variables — does not copy resources, deployments, or runtime state

appaloft env lock env_staging
appaloft env unlock env_staging
appaloft env clone env_staging --name env_staging_2

Clone, lock, unlock, and archive never stop a runtime, delete a resource, clean up domains, or remove certificates — use each object’s own lifecycle command when you need to clean those up.

Copying an environment (Copy)

Copying an environment is more complete than cloning: by default it copies the shape of service/resource configuration and redeploys under the new environment, while keeping the data plane isolated. The Web console’s “Copy environment” defaults to a safe policy:

Dimension	Default policy
Services	Copy and redeploy
Network	Create a new, isolated network
Dependencies	Create new, independent managed dependencies (don’t share source data)
Secrets	Regenerate references for the target environment — never copies or displays the source plaintext
Database	Create an empty database, then seed / migrate / restore as needed
Domains	Generate new routes — doesn’t copy production custom domains
Storage	Create empty volumes

appaloft env copy local staging \
  --dependencies create-new \
  --secrets regenerate \
  --data empty \
  --domains generated \
  --storage empty \
  --network isolated

# When you need to reuse source data or migrate data, declare the advanced policy explicitly
appaloft env copy production staging --database restore:backup_123
appaloft env copy production staging --reuse-source db --acknowledge-shared-source

--reuse-source makes the target environment share the same database or dependency resource as the source environment and must be explicitly confirmed, because it means the two environments will share data.

Common mistakes

Treating archive as delete: archive is only a retirement state — all history is retained, it just can’t be unlocked back to active.
Assuming clone copies resources and deployments: clone only copies variables — resources, deployment history, and runtime state are never copied.
Reusing a source dependency without confirmation: --reuse-source makes multiple environments share the same data and must include an explicit --acknowledge-shared-source.