DevOps — Environment configuration management (dev / staging / production)

[TFT444]

Overview

Set up environment-specific configuration for the frontend and API layer, covering local development, staging (Vercel preview), and production deployments.

Config variables needed

Variable	Dev	Staging	Prod
VITE_SENTINEL_PROXY_URL	http://localhost:3000/api	Vercel preview URL	Production URL
VITE_DEMO_MODE	true	false	false
VITE_APP_VERSION	dev	2.1.0-rc	2.1.0

Implementation

• frontend/.env.development — local dev defaults (no secrets)
• frontend/.env.production — production defaults (no secrets — actual values via Vercel env vars)
• frontend/.env.example — checked in, documents all required variables
• .gitignore updated to exclude .env.local and .env.*.local

Acceptance criteria

• .env.development, .env.production, .env.example created
• .gitignore updated
• No secrets in any committed .env file
• README deployment section updated with environment variable docs

Part of

Phase 2 DevOps