Environments

An Environment connects a Rollout to an external deployment backend and enables multi-cluster coordination.

What is an Environment?

Environments represent deployment targets like staging, production, or eu-west-1. They:

1. Link to a Rollout to track its versions
2. Sync state to an external backend for coordination
3. Define relationships for cross-environment promotion

Environment Resource

apiVersion: environments.kuberik.com/v1alpha1
kind: Environment
metadata:
  name: production
  namespace: default
spec:
  # The Rollout this environment tracks
  rolloutRef:
    name: my-app

  # Human-readable environment name
  name: "production"

  # External backend for state coordination
  backend:
    type: github
    project: "my-org/my-repo"
    secret: "github-token"

  # (Optional) Wait for upstream environment
  relationship:
    environment: staging
    type: After

Key Fields

Multi-Cluster Coordination

Kuberik uses external backends as a coordination layer. With the GitHub backend, this enables:

• Disconnected clusters: Staging in AWS, Production in GCP—no direct networking required
• Audit trail: Full deployment history visible in GitHub
• Status checks: Branch protections can require successful deployments

During deployment:

1. Environment controller updates the backend
2. State is recorded (Pending → Success/Failure)
3. Downstream environments watch for success events

  flowchart LR
    %% Styles
    classDef env fill:#4B4BE8,stroke:#fff,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff
    classDef backend fill:#E5E7EB,stroke:#374151,stroke-width:1px,color:#374151
    classDef boundary fill:#F3F4F6,stroke:#D1D5DB,stroke-width:1px,color:#374151,stroke-dasharray: 5 5

    subgraph ClusterA ["Cluster A (Staging)"]
        direction TB
        S_ENV[Environment: staging]:::env
        S_RO[Rollout]:::env
    end

    subgraph Backend ["Backend System"]
        BE[External State Store]:::backend
    end

    subgraph ClusterB ["Cluster B (Production)"]
        direction TB
        P_ENV[Environment: production]:::env
        P_RO[Rollout]:::env
    end

    S_ENV -->|Reports Success| BE
    BE -->|Staging Passed| P_ENV
    P_ENV -->|Triggers| P_RO

    class ClusterA,ClusterB boundary

Environment Relationships

Define promotion chains with the relationship field:

spec:
  relationship:
    environment: staging  # Wait for this environment
    type: After           # Only proceed after it succeeds

This creates automatic promotion: when staging succeeds with version v1.2.0, production becomes eligible to deploy v1.2.0.

Backend Configuration

Environments require a backend to store deployment state. The backend type is specified in spec.backend.type.

GitHub

spec:
  backend:
    type: github
    project: "owner/repo"
    secret: "github-credentials"  # Secret containing token

The secret must contain a GitHub token with deployments write scope (repo:deployment). See GitHub Integration for setup details.

Viewing Deployments

Since Kuberik syncs state to external backends, you can view deployment history in your backend provider’s UI.

For GitHub:

1. Navigate to your repository
2. Click Environments in the sidebar
3. View deployment history and status

Related Guides

• Cross-Environment Rollout — Set up staging → production
• GitHub Integration — Configure the GitHub backend