---
schema_version: "1"
id: 676472614f19c90edb63a3e99229b38e6525a375a1fdeae15de030c4402fef99
title: Lifecycle Center Environments
collection: admin
version: current
locale: en-us
portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/platform/264-0-0/devops_center_environments_overview.md
canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_environments_overview.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5
source_site: help.salesforce.com
content_type: documentation
content_hash: 9ab5d998f5ef794f67191b8f9916c0fb53547fdbcd3509f79cca77941a76e27b
description: Environments are the Salesforce orgs, such as sandboxes, scratch orgs, or production orgs, connected to your Lifecycle Center pipeline. Lifecycle Center uses different environment types for development, pipeline stages, and release.
products:
  - Salesforce Platform
release: "264"
---
# Lifecycle Center Environments

Environments are the Salesforce orgs, such as sandboxes, scratch orgs, or production orgs, connected to your Lifecycle Center pipeline. Lifecycle Center uses different environment types for development, pipeline stages, and release.

### Required Editions

<table class="slds-table slds-table_bordered slds-max-medium-table_stacked slds-m-bottom_small edition"><colgroup><col></colgroup><tbody><tr class=""><td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">Available in: Lightning Experience in <strong>Professional</strong> (API access required), <strong>Enterprise</strong>, <strong>Performance</strong>, <strong>Unlimited</strong>, and <strong>Developer</strong> Editions</td></tr></tbody><colgroup><col></colgroup><tbody><tr class=""><td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">Not available in: <strong>Government Cloud Plus</strong>. Contact your Salesforce account executive for more details.</td></tr></tbody><colgroup><col></colgroup><tbody><tr class=""><td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">Not available in: <strong>EU Operating</strong> Zone. EU Operating zone is a special paid offering that provides an enhanced level of data residency commitment. Lifecycle Center <em>is</em> supported in orgs in the EU that aren’t part of EU OZ, per standard product terms and conditions.</td></tr></tbody></table>

## Types of Environments

Lifecycle Center supports these environment types:

- **Release environment**: Your production org or final deployment target. Every pipeline requires one release environment.
- **Development environments**: Source-tracked sandboxes where developers make changes. Use Developer or Developer Pro sandboxes created from your production org. Assign each team member their own sandbox to avoid conflicts.
- **Pipeline stage environments**: Sandboxes for the testing and validation stages in your pipeline, such as integration, user acceptance testing (UAT), and staging.

## Identify Your Environments

Before you configure Lifecycle Center, identify the environments that you use for each pipeline and make sure that they're created. Development environments require source tracking. Scratch orgs have source tracking enabled by default.

Enable source tracking for Developer and Developer Pro sandboxes in one of two ways:

- Enable source tracking in production for all Developer and Developer Pro sandboxes. After you enable this feature, refresh any developer sandboxes before you proceed. All newly created or refreshed sandboxes have source tracking enabled.
- Enable source tracking in a specific sandbox on the Sandbox Settings page. Refreshing the sandbox isn't required for this option.

For more information, see [Enable Source Tracking in Sandboxes](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.data_sandbox_enable_source_tracking.htm&language=en_US).

## Prepare Your Environments

Before you continue, make sure to:

- Create the source-tracked Developer or Developer Pro sandboxes for development, and create sandboxes for pipeline stages, such as integration, user acceptance testing (UAT), and staging.
- Gather the usernames and passwords for all environments, including the release environment, such as production.
- Add team members as users to every environment that they need access to.
- Update the IP allowlist for Lifecycle Center, if your security settings require it.

#### See Also

- [Manage Environments](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_manage_environments.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Replace or remove environments in Lifecycle Center as your project evolves. Environments are the Salesforce orgs, such as sandboxes, scratch orgs, or production orgs, connected to your Lifecycle Center pipeline. Available operations depend on the environment type and pipeline activation status.")
- [Are You Sharing a Development Environment?](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_dev_environment_sharing.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Changes are associated in Lifecycle Center with the development environment within a project. Therefore, we recommend that all developers have their own development environment. A single development environment can be connected to multiple work items.")
- [Keep Your Development Environment in Sync](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.devops_center_sync_dev_environment.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Use back sync to update your development environment with the latest changes from the first pipeline stage. Keeping your environment current helps maintain compatibility with your team’s changes and reduce merge conflicts.")
- [_Salesforce DX Developer Guide_: Enable Source Tracking in Sandboxes](https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.sfdx_dev.meta/sfdx_dev/sfdx_setup_enable_source_tracking_sandboxes.htm)