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Environments

Environments in Toggly allow you to manage feature flags separately for different stages of your development lifecycle.

What are Environments?​

Environments are isolated configurations for feature flags. Each environment maintains its own:

  • Feature flag states (enabled/disabled)
  • Targeting rules and segments
  • Experiment configurations

Default Environments​

When you create a new application, Toggly automatically creates a set of default environments (configured in your Workspace Settings). You can always add, edit, or remove environments later.

Common default environments include:

Development​

Use for local development and testing. Changes here don't affect production users.

Staging​

Use for pre-production testing with production-like data. Perfect for QA and stakeholder reviews.

Production​

Your live environment serving real users. Changes here affect all production traffic.

Creating Custom Environments​

You can create additional environments for:

  • Beta: Testing with a subset of production users
  • Regional: Different configurations per region
  • Customer-specific: Custom environments for enterprise customers

To create a custom environment:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Environments
  2. Click Create Environment
  3. Enter a name and description
  4. Configure environment-specific settings
  5. Click Create

App Keys & Environments​

App Keys are used to connect your application to Toggly. When you generate an App Key, you can choose to restrict it to specific environments (e.g., a "Production Only" key).

  • Best Practice: Create separate App Keys for each environment (e.g., one for Staging, one for Production) to prevent accidental cross-environment access.

Use the appropriate key for each environment:

const environment = process.env.NODE_ENV || 'development';
// Ensure this key is restricted to the current environment
const appKey = process.env.TOGGLY_APP_KEY; 

const toggly = new TogglyClient({
  appKey,
  environment
});

Syncing & Comparing Environments​

Toggly provides a powerful Compare Environments tool that lets you visualize differences between any two environments (e.g., Staging vs. Production).

Using the comparison tool, you can:

  1. View Differences: See exactly which flags or rules differ between environments.
  2. Sync Changes: Selectively copy feature states and configurations from one environment to another.
  3. Audit Safety: Review changes before applying them to a critical environment like Production.
Production Safety

Always test feature flags in Development and Staging before promoting to Production. Use gradual rollouts even after promotion.

Environment Isolation​

Environments are completely isolated:

  • Changes in Development don't affect Production
  • Each environment has separate metrics and analytics
  • App keys can be restricted to specific environments for added security
  • Audit logs track all changes across all environments, with filtering capabilities

Best Practices​

  1. Use Environment Variables: Store App Keys in environment variables, not in code
  2. Match Your Deployments: Align Toggly environments with your deployment environments
  3. Test Before Production: Always test feature flags in non-production environments first
  4. Document Differences: Note any environment-specific configurations or requirements

Next Steps​