DevOps & CloudIntermediate
Ephemeral Environment
Pronunciationih-FEM-er-uhl en-VI-ruhn-muhnt
Definition
A temporary, fully functional copy of an application's infrastructure that is automatically created for a specific pull request and destroyed when the branch is closed or merged.
Where you hear it
In CI/CD pipelines, DevOps discussions, and during feature testing or QA reviews.
Examples
The CI pipeline automatically spins up an ephemeral environment for every new pull request.
QA testers can review the new feature safely in a dedicated ephemeral environment before it merges.
Common mistake
Treating ephemeral environments like persistent staging servers, forgetting that all data and configurations inside them will be wiped out automatically.