flowchart LR
subgraph e1["Ephemeral / PR"]
direction TB
a1["scaled to 1<br/>mocked externals<br/>synthetic data<br/><i>proves: it builds and unit-passes</i><br/>auto-destroy 24h"]
end
subgraph e2["Dev"]
direction TB
a2["shared<br/>real internal deps<br/>synthetic data<br/><i>proves: integration wiring</i><br/>anyone deploys"]
end
subgraph e3["Staging"]
direction TB
a3["prod-shaped topology<br/>real deps · sandbox externals<br/>masked prod-like data<br/><i>proves: contracts + performance</i><br/>pipeline only"]
end
subgraph e4["Production"]
direction TB
a4["full scale · multi-AZ<br/>real data<br/><i>proves: nothing — it serves</i><br/>pipeline + gate"]
end
e1 --> e2 --> e3 --> e4
note["Same artifact promoted throughout.<br/>Config differs; the image digest does not."]
Deployment & Infrastructure View
Environment Topology
Which environments exist, what each one proves, what data it holds and who may deploy to it.
Environment Strategy
Build