> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://engineering.unkey.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Environments

> Staging and production environment URLs and how traffic flows between them.

Unkey runs two primary environments. Staging auto-deploys from `main` and is used to validate changes before promoting them to production.

## Staging

| Service | URL                             |
| ------- | ------------------------------- |
| API     | `https://api.unkey-staging.com` |

Staging tracks the `main` branch — every merge to main deploys to staging automatically via ArgoCD. See [promotions](/infra/infra-work#promotions) for details on how changes flow from staging to production.

### When to use staging

* Testing API changes before they reach production
* Validating new features end-to-end against a live environment
* Reproducing bugs without affecting production data
* Running integration tests that need a real API

<Warning>
  Staging data is not persistent. Do not rely on staging for long-term storage or as a substitute for production.
</Warning>

## Production

| Service | URL                     |
| ------- | ----------------------- |
| API     | `https://api.unkey.com` |

Production is pinned to a specific commit SHA. Deploying to production requires explicitly updating this SHA through a reviewed promotion PR. See [deploying to production](/infra/infra-work#deploying-to-production) for the step-by-step process.