I’m deploying the same app to both staging and production environments using DigitalOcean App Platform.
Is there a recommended way to manage separate environment-specific config files (e.g. config.staging.json vs config.prod.json) or environment-based logic?
Right now I’m hardcoding things based on environment variables, but I wonder if there’s a cleaner pattern others are using.
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Accepted Answer
Hi there,
I think that the App Platform doesn’t support auto-loading different config files based on environment names, but the cleanest way is exactly what you’re already doing, control config behavior via environment variables.
For example, set NODE_ENV=production or APP_ENV=staging in the App Platform dashboard per environment. Then load the appropriate config in your code:
const config = require(`./config.${process.env.APP_ENV || 'prod'}.json`);
You can define APP_ENV separately for each deployment (staging vs prod) under Settings -> Environment Variables in App Platform.
This avoids duplicating code or maintaining multiple config branches, and it works well for CI/CD setups too.
For more complex setups, tools like dotenv, config, or env-var packages help manage fallbacks and validations.
- Bobby
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