---
name: app-configuration-ac-environments
title: Creating an environment
description: Environments in App Configuration represent your application environments. Typical environments might be dev, staging, or production. Environments manage your feature flags and properties into deployments from development to production. Create your environments based on your development requirements.
last-updated: 2025-02-19
---

> ## Documentation Index
> The table of contents for this documentation set is at https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/app-configuration?format=markdown
> The index for all IBM Cloud docs is at: https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/llms.txt
> Use these files to discover more information as needed.

# Creating an environment
{: #ac-environments}

Environments in App Configuration represent your application environments. Typical environments might be dev, staging, or production. Environments manage your feature flags and properties into deployments from development to production. Create your environments based on your development requirements.
{: shortdesc}

When you create an App Configuration instance, an environment is created in the name `dev` by default.
{: note}

Each feature flag or properties that are created has its own values, tags, and segment rules for each environment. You can also toggle the feature flag per environment so that you can have different rules for flags per environment for the same feature flag or properties.

By default, the environment page displays the list of environments that are created in the current App Configuration service instance along with **Name**, **Environment ID** and **Last Updated**.

![List of environments](images/ac-environments-default.png "List of environments"){: caption="List of environments" caption-side="bottom"}

## Create an environment
{: #ac-create-environment}

To create an environment, complete these steps:

1. In the App Configuration console, click **Environments**.

1. Click **Create**. The side panel opens with fields for creating a new environment.

   ![Create environment](images/ac-environments-create.png "Creating environment"){: caption="Creating a new environment" caption-side="bottom"}

1. Provide the following environment details:
   - **Name** - name of the environment.
   - **Environment ID** - the environment ID value is auto suggested based on the entered environment name. You can modify the same, if needed. Use the **Environment ID** value as the identifier in your SDK or API code.
   - **Description** - add a description of the environment, which is optional.
   - Optionally, define **Tags** to identify the environment.
   - Click the color image to change the **Color code** for this environment, which is optional.

1. Click **Create**.

## Environments - overflow menu
{: #environments-overflow-menu}

The overflow menu for each of the environment (three vertical dots) consists of **Edit** and **Delete** operations.

![Overflow menu for an environment](images/ac-environments-overflow-menu.png "Overflow menu for an environment"){: caption="Overflow menu for an environment" caption-side="bottom"}

- When **Edit** option is selected, you can change the **Name**, **Description**, add or delete **Tags**, and modify the **Color code**.
- When **Delete** option is selected, a confirmation window is displayed to seek confirmation to delete the selected environment.

By default, at least one environment must be present in an App Configuration service instance.
{: note}