Concepts · Core concepts
Environments
production, staging, development, and what they change.
Every site carries a fixed environment: production, staging or development.
What it changes#
The environment is a descriptive label, not a feature switch. The engine scores identically in all three, a tampered browser on staging gets the same verdict it would on production.
It is used to:
- Separate your numbers, so test traffic does not distort the production charts
- Filter the events list and the aggregate screens
- Remind a reader where the numbers in front of them came from
Why it is fixed#
The environment is set when the site is created and cannot be changed afterwards. Changing it would rewrite the meaning of every visit already stored under that site, a month of production data silently becoming test data, with nothing in the record saying it was ever the other kind.
If you need a different environment, create a different site. Separate keys are something you want anyway.
The local demo site#
A built-in site answers for loopback origins (http://localhost:*, http://127.0.0.1:*) and only loopback. It is convenient for a first run, but:
The demo site belongs to no workspace. What it collects exists in the database but does not appear on your dashboard. Use your own site's keys as soon as you have them.
First-party subdomains#
A site can serve the SDK from a subdomain of your own instead of ours. This needs ownership proved by a TXT record, then TLS issued by the operations team. See Subdomains.