Environments & secrets

VibeCaaS gives every project multiple isolated environments so you can develop, test, and ship with confidence. Each environment has its own resources, variables, database, and deployment pipeline — changes in one never leak into another. This page also covers the cloud IDE you use to work inside them.

If you're new to projects, start with Working with projects.

Environment types

A project ships with three environments out of the box.

Environment variables

Each environment has its own secure, encrypted store for configuration and secrets. Variables set in development never apply to production, so you can use different API keys and connection strings per environment.

# Development
NODE_ENV=development
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://localhost:5432/dev
API_KEY=dev_key_12345
DEBUG=true

# Production
NODE_ENV=production
DATABASE_URL=***encrypted***
API_KEY=***encrypted***
DEBUG=false

Security: Production variables are encrypted at rest and in transit. Only authorized users on your team can view or edit them.

Databases per environment

Every environment gets its own PostgreSQL 15 database with resources sized to its role:

• Development — small (around 1 GB), manual backups, reset anytime.
• Staging — medium (around 5 GB), daily backups, can be cloned from production.
• Production — large (100 GB+), continuous backups, read replicas.

Migrations are applied in order — Development → Staging → Production — so schema changes are validated before they reach live data.

Resource allocation

Resources scale with the environment. Production is the only tier with auto-scaling, which adjusts CPU and memory based on traffic.

The cloud IDE

You work inside environments through the VibeCaaS cloud IDE — VS Code-grade editing with AI assistance and real-time collaboration built in.

Core features

• IntelliSense & autocomplete for 30+ languages, with AI-powered suggestions, auto-imports, and hover docs.
• Integrated terminal with full bash/zsh support, multiple sessions, and package-manager integration (npm, yarn, pip).
• Version control — built-in Git with visual diff and merge tools and GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket integration.
• Search & navigation — fuzzy file search, go to definition, find all references, workspace symbol search.

Keyboard shortcuts

Tip: Type a comment describing what you want, then press Cmd/Ctrl + K to let the AI generate the code inline.

Promotion workflow

Code moves through environments in a predictable arc:

1. Develop locally — write and test in the development environment.
2. Push to staging — merge to the staging branch for QA.
3. Test & validate — run tests and review in a production-like setting.
4. Deploy to production — merge to main and go live.

Branch protection means production deployments require passing tests and code-review approval.

Best practices

• Never share a database between environments.
• Use different API keys per environment so a leaked dev key can't touch production.
• Always validate in staging before deploying to production.
• Encrypt sensitive variables and restrict who can view production secrets.

Next steps

• Ship a tested build with Deploying your app.
• Attach a production domain in Custom domains.
• Automate environment promotion with Agent workflows.