# Environments

A product runs in environments. Each one has its own data, secrets, release pointer and product host:

- `production`, which every product has;
- the **previews** you create and destroy;
- `ci` and `ci-<n>`, which belong to the platform. Each `ci-<n>` is created for one release's verification run and
  destroyed when that run ends.

## Creating a preview

```sh
aircloud environments create staging
```

A preview starts empty. It runs nothing until a release is activated in it:

```sh
aircloud release activate <release> --env staging
```

The name follows the environment grammar: lower-case letters, digits and single inner hyphens. `production`, `ci` and
`ci-<n>` are refused, naming the name, before anything is sent. The platform also refuses a name whose product host
would not fit one DNS label (`host_label_too_long`). A name the product already has is refused as `conflict`.

`config/environments/<name>.toml` overrides keys for the environment of that name, and `config/environments/preview.toml`
overrides them for every preview. An overlay changes an environment that exists; it never creates one.

## Listing them

```sh
aircloud environments list
```

prints each environment's name, kind (`production` or `preview`) and creation time.

## Destroying a preview

```sh
aircloud environments destroy staging
```

erases the preview's data, secrets, release pointer and host. It cannot be undone, so the command asks you to type
the environment's name first. Pass `--confirm staging` to confirm without a prompt, for example in a script.
`production` and the platform's `ci` environments are never destroyed this way.

`aircloud functions list` counts the environments whose active release holds each function, so a function that
lived only in a destroyed preview reads `removed` or `undeployed` once the preview is gone.

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Rendered from aircloud 0.1.12 at commit d84a0ce6dae53629277f656d96d81549df36807e.