Environments

An environment is the isolation boundary inside a project — dev, staging, production. Services in one environment can't reach services in another (see Environments don't cross-talk for the network details).

This page covers the environment lifecycle in the console: creating, editing, deleting, and the per-environment surfaces (custom domains, network access, storage management).

Create an environment

1. Open the Projects tab and pick the project.

   

2. In the Environments card on the right, click + New Environment.

   

3. Fill in the form:

   Field	What it does
   Name	e.g. dev, staging, production. Per-project.
   Region	Inherited from the account by default; one of the supported regions.
   Private network	Toggle to make the environment network-isolated from the public internet. Off = standard public-by-default with optional IP allowlists.

4. Click Create.

Edit an environment

Next to the environment name, click the options menu and pick Edit environment. Update the fields and click Update.

Delete an environment

Next to the environment name, click the options menu and pick Delete. Type the environment name to confirm — that's the destructive-action guardrail.

Deleting an environment removes its services, deployments, datastores, and any SphereFiles volumes in it. There's no undo — see Limits.

Per-environment surfaces

Once an environment exists, several configuration surfaces live inside it.

Custom domain (environment subdomain)

The environment can have its own subdomain on top of each service's own custom domains. Under the environment's Domain section, toggle the subdomain on — the platform generates a random one — or click Add custom domain to attach your own.

An environment's custom domain points at the environment, and path routing decides which service answers each path. See Domains and certificates for how it fits together, and Custom domains for the DNS setup.

Network access settings

Next to the environment name, open the options menu and pick Access settings to set IP allowlists or public/private network mode.

See Networking for the rules — what's public by default, what allowlists do, what private-network mode actually isolates.

Storage management

Each environment has its own SphereFiles volumes. From the environment's options menu, pick Storage management:

Action	What it does
New volume	Creates a SphereFiles volume. Set its name and size, then Create volume.
Add mount	Mounts the volume into a service at a path, whole or one folder, read-only or read and write.
Make larger	Grows the volume. A volume can't be made smaller.
Delete volume	In the Danger zone: removes the volume and every file in it, once no service mounts it.

For the storage model and the lifecycle rules, see SphereFiles.

Limits

• Environment region is inherited from the account at creation. Changing the region post-create isn't supported — create a new environment in the new region instead.
• Environment name is unique per-project. Two projects can each have a production env; one project can't.
• Deletes cascade and aren't undoable. Deleting an environment deletes its services, deployments, datastores, and SphereFiles volumes. The destructive-action guardrail (typing the name) is the only safety net.
• Cross-environment traffic doesn't work. Services in different environments are network-isolated. To share a datastore between two services, run them in the same environment.
• Private-network mode is environment-wide. You can't make one service in a public-network environment private; flip the whole environment.

What's next

• Add a service — deploy code into the environment.
• Networking — public-by-default, IP allowlists, private-network mode.
• Custom domains — DNS setup for environment subdomains.
• SphereFiles — volumes inside the environment.
• Concepts — the account → project → environment → service hierarchy.