2️⃣ Staging vs Production

What are Staging and Production Environments?

• Staging: A pre-production environment that mimics the production setup. It’s used to test new features and fixes in an environment as close as possible to live before releasing them to real users.

• Production: The live environment where your app is accessible by end users.

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Why Use Both?

• Safely test new updates without affecting real users.

• Catch bugs or performance issues early.

• Validate integration with third-party services (payment gateways, Cloudinary, etc.).

• Run final QA and acceptance tests before launch.

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Key Differences

Aspect	Staging	Production
Environment URL	staging.techtonic.com	techtonic.com
Database	Separate staging database	Live user database
API Keys	Test/sandbox keys	Live API keys
Performance	Similar to production but may have fewer resources	Fully optimized and scaled
Access	Restricted to developers and testers	Open to all users

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Deployment Process

1. Deploy code to staging branch or environment

2. Run automated and manual tests

3. Get stakeholder sign-off

4. Merge to main/master branch for production deploy

5. Deploy to production environment

6. Monitor logs, metrics, and user feedback

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Environment Variables Setup

Both environments require different .env files or configuration settings, for example:

envCopyEdit# Staging .env
DB_URI=mongodb+srv://staging_user:[e-mail]/techtonic-staging
CLOUDINARY_API_KEY=staging_key
JWT_SECRET=staging_secret

envCopyEdit# Production .env
DB_URI=mongodb+srv://prod_user:[e-mail]/techtonic-prod
CLOUDINARY_API_KEY=prod_key
JWT_SECRET=prod_secret

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Best Practices

• Never share production secrets in staging or development.

• Automate deployments to minimize manual errors.

• Regularly sync staging database schema with production (but scrub sensitive data).

• Use monitoring tools on both environments to compare performance.