Environments and production protections
Mark a connection as development, test, staging or production; production edits wait as pending changes until you apply them.
Each connection can say what it is used for: Development, Test, Staging or Production (or Not set, the default). The environment colours the connection’s band on its tabs and in the tree, and Production turns on safety defaults:
- edits made in the result grid are not written at once: they wait as pending changes until you preview and apply them (see Editing documents);
- dropping or clearing a database or collection asks first, as for a red connection.
Connections saved before environments existed keep working as before. A red connection colour still marks them as production for the band and for drop confirmations, but their edits are written at once until you set the environment to Production.
Set the environment
- Open the connection dialog (Edit in the Connection Manager).
- In Environment, choose Not set, Development, Test, Staging or Production.
- Optionally choose a colour for the band next to it: Default colour uses the environment’s own (green, blue, gold, red), or pick one of the palette.
- Click Save.
The environment travels with the connection: exports with extensions write it
(oxys.environment, oxys.environmentColor) and importing that file brings it back, and a
connection shared in a Team Sharing folder carries it to every member. Changing the environment
of a shared connection is a settings change: it needs Manage access and members are told.
Turn the production protections off
Pending changes are the safe default on production. To write grid edits at once on one production connection, turn its protections off. In the connection dialog, clear Review changes before applying (pending changes) under Environment, type the master password and click Save. This asks for the master password again (the password of the cryptographic key store, see Security), and the change is written to the application log. Without a key store there is no master password, and the protections stay on.
Taking a protected connection out of production (choosing another environment in the dialog) asks for the master password the same way. Turning the protections back on, or choosing Production again, never asks.
The protections being off is a local choice: it is never exported, never shared, and a duplicate of the connection starts protected.
Reference
| Environment | Band colour | Grid edits | Drops and clears |
|---|---|---|---|
| Not set | none (red if the connection colour is red) | written at once | ask first on a red connection |
| Development, Test, Staging | green, blue, gold | written at once | as usual |
| Production | red | pending changes, applied on request | ask first |
| Production, protections off | red | written at once | ask first |
Troubleshooting
| Message | What to do |
|---|---|
| “This needs the master password, and none is set” | Turn on the cryptographic key store in Edit › Preferences › Advanced settings › Security, then try again. |
| “Wrong master password” | Type the key store’s master password, the one asked at start. |
| “Production protections apply to connections whose environment is production” | Set the environment to Production first. |