---
title: "Environments"
description: "An environment in BRAIAN by AETERION is an isolated workspace with its own credentials, connected systems, policies and audit history. Deployments normally use three: sandbox for development, staging for evaluation against realistic data, and production for governed live work. Definitions are promoted between environments; data is never promoted with them."
url: "https://aeterion.tech/en/docs/core-concepts/environments"
locale: "en"
publisher: "AETERION SA"
---
# Environments

> An environment in BRAIAN by ÆTERION is an isolated workspace with its own credentials, connected systems, policies and audit history. Deployments normally use three: sandbox for development, staging for evaluation against realistic data, and production for governed live work. Definitions are promoted between environments; data is never promoted with them.

Source: https://aeterion.tech/en/docs/core-concepts/environments
Last updated: 2026-09-20

## The three environments

- **Sandbox** — Development workspace with synthetic data and no write access to production systems.
- **Staging** — Mirrors production integrations against a controlled dataset; used for evaluation runs before promotion.
- **Production** — Live work under active policies, with full audit retention and escalation routing to real roles.

## Promotion

Promotion moves a definition version, not its data or credentials. Each environment binds its own connection settings, so the same version behaves consistently while talking to the right systems.

```bash
braian process promote invoice-approval --from staging --to production --version 7
```

## Hosting and residency

Environments run either in the ÆTERION managed deployment in Switzerland or the EU, or inside the customer's own cloud account. The product is identical in both; only the operating boundary changes.

> **Residency is enforced, not declared** — The data residency policy blocks processing outside the configured regions, including model calls, rather than relying on configuration alone.