Environments

Create an environment

Creating an environment means creating a copy of a selected environment, such as Production. You can use the copy for development and testing purposes. You can create as many environments as your subscription plan allows. If you need to make changes to your content models, we recommend using Kontent.ai’s data-ops tool for code-first content migration. You can create new environments in Project settings > Environments. By default, the content item version history is omitted when cloning environments for a faster cloning experience. If you choose to include version history, the new environment will contain up to 50 latest versions for each content item.

What happens when you create an environment?

By default, cloning a new environment means creating an exact copy of the source environment, including:

• Content & assets – assets, content items along with their versions, comments and suggestions, and tasks)
• Content model – content types, asset type, content type snippets, and taxonomies
• Environment settings – collections, languages, preview URLs, roles, spaces, webhooks, and workflows
  • Specific Innovation Lab features, such as the smarter search experience and suggest linked items with AI, will be deactivated in the cloned environment.

User access to the new environment depends on their role. When creating an environment, you can choose which users to activate by selecting their roles. Project managers have access to all environments. Webhooks are set as disabled in the new environment to ensure they don't trigger your production apps and services.

Get your environment ID

You use the environment ID to tell Delivery API where to look for content. An environment ID looks like this: 8d20758c-d74c-4f59-ae04-ee928c0816b.

1. In Kontent.ai, select a project and its environment using the two drop-downs at the top left.
2. In Environment settings > General, click  to copy the Environment ID to your clipboard.

Select an environment in the UI

You can switch among the current project’s environments using the second drop-down at the top. You can also change environments in Project settings > Environments by clicking Go to environment.

Clone an existing environment

You can clone an existing environment for backup or development and testing purposes. To clone an existing environment in Kontent.ai:

1. Go to Project settings > Environments
2. Click of the environment you want to clone.
3. Select Clone.

Manage changes between environments

Whether you‘re testing content model changes, migrating content, or backing up your environments, there are tools to help you manage them. The data-ops tool offers the capability to sync, migrate, clean, and back up content within Kontent.ai. Migration toolkit is another tool you can use to migrate content from external systems to Kontent.ai, as well as within. Explore the dedicated learning path on how you can work with environments using these tools.

Mark a non-production environment as production

To mark a non-production environment as production, go to Project settings > Environments, and click Mark as production. This approach swaps environments. If you want to disable your webhooks in the new production environment, unselect Enable webhooks after the swap is done. Otherwise, the webhooks will be enabled. After you mark the non-production environment as your new production environment, the newly marked environment will appear at the top of the list.

Considerations

When working with environments, here are some key points to consider:

• Once items are migrated to the target environment, reverting changes is not straightforward. Plan carefully, as there’s no built-in rollback mechanism.
• Avoid syncing or migrating large changes all at once. Smaller, incremental updates are safer and easier to troubleshoot.
• Use snapshots and visual diffs to preview changes before any major updates.
• Disable webhooks during migration to avoid triggering unintended actions.
• The restore process re-imports entities rather than reverting the environment to a previous state.
• Backing up environments via data-ops is meant for occasional use rather than ongoing, automated backups.
• Restoring from a backup is a manual, complex process typically requiring hands-on involvement and planning.