Branch environments

A branch environment is a complete, isolated copy of your site that managed.dev provisions when you push a branch. It has its own database and files — seeded from production — its own hostname and TLS, and its own observability. You get them on every plan, not just an enterprise tier.

The model is deliberately simple: a git branch maps to an environment, and the environment is the unit you deploy, preview, snapshot, and promote. Push main and you deploy production. Push feature/checkout and you get a preview you can hand to a reviewer.

Environment tiers

managed.dev recognizes three tiers, distinguished by how they’re created and how long they live.

Tier	Mapped from	Lifetime	Seeded from
production	the default branch (main)	permanent	the live site
staging	a branch route → staging	long-lived, singleton	production
preview	any non-default branch	ephemeral, per-branch	production

Production is the live site your visitors hit. Staging is a single, stable pre-production environment you promote into. Previews are throwaway: one per branch, created on push and torn down when the branch is deleted. You decide which branch lands where with branch routes.

What “first-class” means

An environment is not a configuration flag on your site — it’s a real resource with its own state.

Own database + files

Each environment has an isolated database and filesystem, cloned from production at create time. A migration you run on a preview can’t touch production data.

Own observability

Per-environment web vitals, logs, and traces. A slow query on staging shows up under staging, not muddled into production.

Own hostname + TLS

Every environment gets a live URL with automatic TLS. Production carries your custom domain; previews and staging get platform hostnames.

Config inheritance

Environments inherit configuration from the site — security tier, performance tier, secrets — and you override per-environment where you need to.

Hostnames and preview URLs

Each environment is reachable on a hostname under a per-node label, following the convention <env>.<node-label>.<zone>. Preview environments additionally get a disposable URL built from the site, branch, and a short hash:

Preview URL pattern

https://<site>-<branch>-<hash>.preview.managed.dev

For example, a push of feature/checkout on the acme-store site provisions something like https://acme-store-feature-checkout-a1b2c3.preview.managed.dev. The hash keeps the URL stable for the branch but distinct from any other site, so it’s safe to paste into a pull request or send to a client.

The Environments tab in the app.managed.dev dashboard for the acme-store site, showing a production environment plus a staging environment and two preview environments, each with a status badge, branch name, and live preview URL.

Isolation guarantees

Isolation is the whole point. A branch environment cannot read or write production’s database or files, and the reverse holds too. Builds run on a dedicated builders pool, never on the host serving your live site, so a heavy build can’t degrade production.

PII hard-cut on cloned environments

When an environment is seeded by cloning production, its database may carry visitor data created before the clone. managed.dev raises a hard-cut floor at the environment’s creation time: observability for a cloned environment never surfaces rows from before it was created. Pre-clone visitor data is never exposed through a preview’s logs, traces, or requests views.

Why this is on every plan

An honest comparison

Branch environments shouldn’t be a $500/mo enterprise feature. Pantheon’s Multidev is the closest equivalent and it’s gated to the ~$500/mo Gold tier; most mainstream managed hosts ship a single one-click staging site and stop there. managed.dev includes per-branch isolated environments on the Starter plan, because a real git workflow needs more than one environment.

Next steps

Connect git & deployAdd the managed.dev remote and ship with git push.

Preview environmentsHow per-branch ephemeral previews are provisioned and shared.

Branch routesMap branches to production, staging, preview, or ignore.

Environment lifecycleRefresh, reset, suspend, clone-content, and the other lifecycle actions.