#Concepts

A few things about how the platform behaves that aren't obvious from the getting-started walkthrough alone.

#Environments and branching

Every git branch you push becomes its own environment, with its own live URL — pushing a new branch doesn't redeploy your existing environment, it creates a separate one alongside it. A new environment inherits its configuration and data from the branch (environment) it was created from. Deleting the branch removes the environment with it.

This is what makes it practical to deploy a feature branch or a PR for review without touching what's already live — see Upsun's documentation on environments for the full lifecycle (activating, deactivating, merging).

#Environment variables and secrets

Extensions: Credentials and Custom apps cover what credentials your app typically needs (a PIM API client ID/secret, for example) and how the PIM side is configured. This is about the other end: getting those values onto your deployed app.

Set them as project or environment variables rather than committing them to your repository:

akeneo-extension-platform variable:create --level environment --sensitive PIM_CLIENT_SECRET <value>
    

--sensitive keeps the value out of logs and build output. Variables set on one environment aren't automatically copied to a new one branched from it — set them explicitly on each environment that needs them (this is a common source of "it worked on my other environment" confusion).

#Resource sizing

New environments start with minimal default resources. Size CPU, memory, and disk per application with:

akeneo-extension-platform resources:set --size <app-name>:<size>
    

See Upsun's documentation on managing resources for sizing guidance and autoscaling.

#Team access

The admin account Akeneo provisions for you isn't the only person who can access the project — that admin can invite teammates directly, without going through Akeneo for each one:

akeneo-extension-platform user:add teammate@example.com -r admin
    

Access can be scoped per project or per environment (admin, contributor, viewer) — see Upsun's documentation on administering users for the full set of roles.

#Custom domains

You're not limited to the default *.platformsh.site URL. Attaching your own domain to a production-facing backend uses Upsun's own domain feature:

akeneo-extension-platform domain:add your-domain.com
    

See Upsun's documentation on domains for DNS and certificate setup.