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For production apps, you need to set up a clear development workflow, especially
if you have more than one person working on your app. A development workflow
usually involves setting up and managing multiple environments.
Firebase has varying levels of support for developer workflows and the
constituent environments. Once you're familiar with the developer workflow terms
and assumptions on this page, check out ourgeneral best practicesandgeneral security guidelinesfor setting up a Firebase project and your apps.
About environments
In software development, anenvironmentis all the hardware and software
that are required to run an instance of an application or system of
applications.
A series of environments provides isolation for developing and testing software
without impacting users. As shown in the diagram below, environments at a
high-level are considered eitherpre-productionorproduction, and you can
have as many pre-production environments as needed. The diagram also describes
common practices and features associated with eachtype of environment.
The process of progressing a feature or release through these environments to
production is called adeployment pipeline.
Types of environments
An environment is composed of the underlying infrastructure that you need to run
and support your application, its code, and its data. Expand each of the
following terms to review descriptions of some common environments, including
tips on the types of data used in each environment type.
Development (dev) environments
Every developer needs a development environment — a safe, isolated place to test
changes as they're being built. Ideally, every developer on your team has access
to their own dev environment. Also, if the dev environment is a local instance,
a developer can iterate much faster.
The data in a dev environment is seeded with data that generally resembles the
production data, but should never contain any real users' data. It may also
contain data that has caused bugs in the past, like very long strings.
Test and QA environments
If you have automated tests, you need an environment in which to run those
tests, and you need to reset the data each time you spin up the test
environment.
If you have QA engineers, they may need one environment that they all use, or
they may need individual environments to test a new release candidate.
The data in test and QA environments is seeded with quality data that's
generally representative of the production data, along with data that represents
corner cases and examples of data that have caused bugs in the past.
Staging environments
For realistic tests of how a release will work in production, you need a staging
environment that mimics production infrastructure as closely as possible. It's
common to have multiple staging instances if you need to test specific
integrations in isolation.
Here are common differences between staging and prod:
Staging may be missing some features or integrations that could cause side
effects. For example, staging may be set to not send email.
Staging may have anonymized data; the data can be fake, but it should be
realistic. Because staging is a place to safely debug problems, you might give
broader team access to staging data than production data. So, to protect user
privacy, you shouldn't use actual user data in staging.
Production (prod) environments
For each application that you maintain, you need a single production
environment. This is the instance with which your users interact.
Unlike the other environments where you can change, delete, and/or recreate
data, the data in your prod environment is very important; losing or altering
your prod data will directly affect your users.
In theFirebaseconsole, we recommend tagging the Firebase project associated
with your production environment as a"production" environment type. This tag
can help remind you and your teammates that any changes could affect your
associated production apps and their data.
Next steps
Review ourgeneral best practicesfor setting up Firebase projects. This guide answers questions about Firebase
project hierarchy, how to register your app variants, and multi-tenancy.
Review thegeneral security guidelinesfor different environments. You want to make sure each environment and its
data are secure.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-09-05 UTC."],[],[],null,["For production apps, you need to set up a clear development workflow, especially\nif you have more than one person working on your app. A development workflow\nusually involves setting up and managing multiple environments.\n\nFirebase has varying levels of support for developer workflows and the\nconstituent environments. Once you're familiar with the developer workflow terms\nand assumptions on this page, check out our\n[general best practices](/docs/projects/dev-workflows/general-best-practices)\nand\n[general security guidelines](/docs/projects/dev-workflows/general-security-guidelines)\nfor setting up a Firebase project and your apps.\n| **Key Point:** We recommend reading our guides thoroughly, but here's the top takeaway about development workflows: \n| **Firebase recommends using a *separate* Firebase project for *each* environment\n| in your development workflow.**\n\nAbout environments\n\nIn software development, an ***environment*** is all the hardware and software\nthat are required to run an instance of an application or system of\napplications.\n\nA series of environments provides isolation for developing and testing software\nwithout impacting users. As shown in the diagram below, environments at a\nhigh-level are considered either *pre-production* or *production* , and you can\nhave as many pre-production environments as needed. The diagram also describes\ncommon practices and features associated with each\n[type of environment](#types).\n\nThe process of progressing a feature or release through these environments to\nproduction is called a ***deployment pipeline***.\n\nTypes of environments\n\nAn environment is composed of the underlying infrastructure that you need to run\nand support your application, its code, and its data. Expand each of the\nfollowing terms to review descriptions of some common environments, including\ntips on the types of data used in each environment type.\n| **Key Point:** Every app should have at least one *pre-production* environment that's isolated from production data and resources.\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\n**Development (dev) environments**\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\nEvery developer needs a development environment --- a safe, isolated place to test\nchanges as they're being built. Ideally, every developer on your team has access\nto their own dev environment. Also, if the dev environment is a local instance,\na developer can iterate much faster.\n\nThe data in a dev environment is seeded with data that generally resembles the\nproduction data, but should never contain any real users' data. It may also\ncontain data that has caused bugs in the past, like very long strings.\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\n**Test and QA environments**\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\nIf you have automated tests, you need an environment in which to run those\ntests, and you need to reset the data each time you spin up the test\nenvironment.\n\nIf you have QA engineers, they may need one environment that they all use, or\nthey may need individual environments to test a new release candidate.\n\nThe data in test and QA environments is seeded with quality data that's\ngenerally representative of the production data, along with data that represents\ncorner cases and examples of data that have caused bugs in the past.\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\n**Staging environments**\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\nFor realistic tests of how a release will work in production, you need a staging\nenvironment that mimics production infrastructure as closely as possible. It's\ncommon to have multiple staging instances if you need to test specific\nintegrations in isolation.\n\nHere are common differences between staging and prod:\n\n- Staging may be missing some features or integrations that could cause side\n effects. For example, staging may be set to not send email.\n\n- Staging may have anonymized data; the data can be fake, but it should be\n realistic. Because staging is a place to safely debug problems, you might give\n broader team access to staging data than production data. So, to protect user\n privacy, you shouldn't use actual user data in staging.\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\n**Production (prod) environments**\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\nFor each application that you maintain, you need a single production\nenvironment. This is the instance with which your users interact.\n\nUnlike the other environments where you can change, delete, and/or recreate\ndata, the data in your prod environment is very important; losing or altering\nyour prod data will directly affect your users.\n\nIn the Firebase console, we recommend tagging the Firebase project associated\nwith your production environment as a\n[\"production\" environment type](/support/faq#set-environment-type). This tag\ncan help remind you and your teammates that any changes could affect your\nassociated production apps and their data.\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\n| **Tip** : Integrations with analytics services, including Google Analytics, often require special attention when you're setting up a new environment. You also don't want your tests from pre-production environments to impact production analytics.\n|\n| We recommend not setting up analytics for most pre-production environments,\n| unless you want to specifically test analytics integrations, like making\n| sure the right parameters are being sent to your analytics service.\n\nNext steps\n\n- Review our [general best practices](/docs/projects/dev-workflows/general-best-practices)\n for setting up Firebase projects. This guide answers questions about Firebase\n project hierarchy, how to register your app variants, and multi-tenancy.\n\n- Review the [general security guidelines](/docs/projects/dev-workflows/general-security-guidelines)\n for different environments. You want to make sure each environment and its\n data are secure.\n\n- Review the [Firebase launch checklist](/support/guides/launch-checklist)."]]
