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Environments

Environments let you manage separate configurations for different stages of your workflow. Stellar supports three environments:

  • Development: For building and debugging your agent with test credentials and development APIs.
  • Staging: For pre-production validation with near-production settings.
  • Production: For live customer conversations with real credentials.

What is environment-aware​

The following features support per-environment configuration:

FeatureWhat changes per environment
API connectionsBase URL, auth connector, and headers
Auth connectorsCredentials and token endpoints
SecretsAPI keys and sensitive values
VariablesNon-sensitive config values, defined once and reused across agents and actions
ConnectorsEach connector is assigned to a specific environment

When a conversation starts, the environment determines which set of values is used for all of these.

How the environment is determined​

The environment for a conversation depends on how it was initiated:

ContextHow environment is set
PlaygroundSelected in the environment selector before starting the conversation
Phone callDetermined by the connector's environment setting
Public link / SDKDefaults to Production, or set explicitly via the API

Typical workflow​

A typical development workflow using environments:

  1. Configure Development values: Point actions at development APIs, use test API keys, set variables to development values.
  2. Build and test in Playground: Select the Development environment in the Playground to test with your development configuration.
  3. Configure Staging values: Set up pre-production credentials and endpoints.
  4. Validate in Staging: Create a staging connector or use the Playground with the Staging environment to verify everything works with near-production settings.
  5. Configure Production values: Set live API keys, real endpoints, and production credentials.
  6. Deploy to Production: Create a production connector to route live customer calls.

Setting up environment values​

API connections​

Navigate to Manage > API connections. When creating or editing an API connection, configure the base URL, auth connector, and headers for each environment.

See API connections for details.

Secrets​

Navigate to Manage > Secrets. When creating or editing a secret, enter a value for each environment.

See API secrets management for details.

Variables​

Navigate to Manage > Variables. When creating or editing a variable, enter a value for each environment.

See Variables for details.

Auth connectors​

Navigate to Manage > Auth connectors. Each auth connector has per-environment configuration for its credentials (tokens, client IDs, etc.).

See Authentication connectors for details.

Best practices​

  • Always configure all three environments for secrets and auth connectors to avoid missing values in production.
  • Use test credentials in Development so you can test freely without affecting real systems.
  • Test each environment in the Playground before routing live traffic through a connector.
  • Keep Production credentials separate from Development and Staging for security isolation.