Sharetribe environments

Sharetribe environments are instances of your own marketplace, but with different functions. When you first create a Sharetribe account, you have two environments: Test and Dev. When you are ready to go live, we will create a third environment: Live.

The environment can be changed from the dropdown in the top of your navigation sidebar.

Information

Organization and environment are terms that are used to communicate which Sharetribe marketplace you are looking at in Console.

Organization: An entity that is created when you first create an account. This is where you can invite other admin users to work with. An organization can include multiple environments for different purposes, but it can only include one live environment.

Environment: A marketplace instance within your organization which can be created for different purposes. There are three different types of environments: Dev, Test, and Live. You can access them all with the same Sharetribe account.

Environment types

Environments store your marketplace data and configuration. The three environments in Sharetribe each have their own specific workflow described below.

Each environment should also be connected to its own dedicated marketplace application. The marketplace application renders the data and configurations stored in its environment. It can also contain custom code changes.

The marketplace application type follows the type of environment to which it connects. A Test environment is connected to a test marketplace application, Dev environment to a dev marketplace, and a Live environment to a live marketplace.

Test environment

The Test environment is where building your marketplace no-code happens. It is connected to a test marketplace application, where you can try the build functionalities in peace by using test users and test payments.

Once you have a Live environment, the Test environment functions as a preview environment for how your Live marketplace application will work. You as the operator make no-code changes in Test, and copy them to Live. Because Test and Live are identical, your changes made in Test show up correctly when published to Live.

Note that you should not onboard real users or listings to Test, as they cannot be moved into Live.

Live environment

The Live environment is where the business happens: here you can onboard your real customers and listings, and your customers can make real money transactions.

When the necessary configurations and development have been done, and your marketplace is ready for onboarding real users, you can initiate the Live environment setup from Console. This is also the point when you start paying for a subscription (see more information about Sharetribe pricing at the bottom of our website.

You rarely make no-code or code changes in your Live environment. Changes are made in the Dev environment and the Test environment, then copied to your Live environment.

Dev environment

The Dev environment is purely for development purposes. This is where your development team implements custom code to work alongside the no-code content and configurations you set.

Even after launching your marketplace, you can continue building new features in Dev without causing disruptions to your Test or Live marketplaces. Note that you should not onboard real users or listings to Dev, as they cannot be moved into Live.

Workflow between the three environments

In a nutshell, the workflow between the environments is that changes flow either from Test or from Dev to the other environments:

• no-code changes are made in Test, and get pushed from Test to Dev and Live
• code changes are made and reviewed in Dev, and get pushed from Dev to Test and Live

No-code changes include:

• Configuration changes in Console like adding new listing fields
• Content changes in Console like editing your landing page

Code changes include:

• client application development, updated through your development code repository
• transaction process changes, updated through Flex CLI
• search schema changes, updated through Flex CLI

We recommend that you keep Test and Live identical as much as possible. In other words, push any code changes from Dev to Test and Live at the same time before making further no-code changes in Test. This will ensure that Test accurately works as a preview environment for Live.

Additional development environments

Depending on your development flow, you might need additional dev environments for your organization, e.g. for Quality Assurance (QA) or automated testing. We can include additional environments to your paid subscription at a price of $49 per month per environment. To include additional development environments in your subscription, contact Sharetribe Support!