Working with Environments

Environments are the core concept in OpenPrime. Each environment represents a complete infrastructure configuration that can be deployed to a cloud provider.

Environment Structure

An environment contains:

name: production-us-east
provider: aws
region: us-east-1
configuration:
  # Provider-specific settings
services:
  kubernetes: { enabled: true, ... }
  database: { enabled: true, ... }
helmCharts:
  nginx-ingress: { enabled: true, ... }

Creating Environments

Via the UI

1. Navigate to Environments in the sidebar
2. Click Create Environment
3. Complete the wizard:
   • Basic info (name, provider, region)
   • Services configuration
   • Helm charts selection
   • Review and save

Environment Naming

Use descriptive, consistent names:

# Good
production-us-east
staging-eu-west
dev-team-alpha

# Avoid
env1
my-environment
test

Managing Services

Enabling Services

Each service has an enabled flag and configuration options:

services:
  kubernetes:
    enabled: true
    clusterName: my-cluster
    version: "1.28"

Service Dependencies

Some services have dependencies:

Service	Requires
Helm Charts	Kubernetes
Ingress	Kubernetes
Service Mesh	Kubernetes

OpenPrime validates dependencies before saving.

Environment Lifecycle

States

State	Description
Draft	Being configured, not deployed
Active	Configuration saved, ready to deploy
Deployed	Infrastructure provisioned
Archived	No longer active, retained for history

Operations

• Edit - Modify configuration
• Clone - Create copy with new name
• Export - Download configuration as JSON/YAML
• Archive - Soft delete, can be restored
• Delete - Permanent removal

Best Practices

Environment Parity

Keep development, staging, and production similar:

# Use the same structure, different scale
development:
  nodeCount: 1
  instanceType: t3.small

staging:
  nodeCount: 2
  instanceType: t3.medium

production:
  nodeCount: 5
  instanceType: t3.large

Version Control

Export and commit environment configurations:

# Export environment
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  http://localhost:3001/api/environments/123/export \
  > environments/production.json

Tagging

Use consistent tags for cost allocation and organization:

configuration:
  tags:
    Environment: production
    Team: platform
    CostCenter: infrastructure