---
title: "Configuration Diff and Promote"
description: "Comparing configuration snapshot diffs and promoting changes to a target environment."
---

> Documentation Index
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# Configuration Diff and Promote

## Goal <a id="environment-diff" />

Understand the configuration difference between two environments (missing variables, different values, secret status differences), and safely promote verified configuration to a target environment, instead of directly overwriting historical deployments.

## When to use this task

- Confirming staging and production configuration line up before shipping.
- Promoting a set of new variables to production after verifying them on staging.

## Prerequisites

- Both the source and target environments already exist, and neither is locked.

## Inputs and defaults

| Input | Description |
| --- | --- |
| Source environment | The environment providing the reference configuration, for example staging |
| Target environment | The environment receiving the change, for example production |
| Secret handling | How secrets from the source environment are handled during promotion (never exposes plaintext by default) |

## CLI steps

```bash
# Compare configuration differences between two environments
appaloft env diff env_staging env_prod

# Promote configuration to the target environment (creates a new configuration state, doesn't overwrite historical deployments directly)
appaloft env promote env_staging env_prod
```

## Expected output and status

`diff` lists: variables missing from the target environment, variables with different values, and secret status differences (whether it exists, whether it was recently updated) — but never the secret plaintext itself. `promote` creates a new configuration state on the target environment; this is not the same as an immediate redeploy — an already-running instance is never automatically restarted by a promote.

## Verification

After promoting, check whether the target environment's variable list matches expectations, then decide whether you need to trigger a new deployment so the running instance reads the new configuration.

## Rollback / recovery

Promote never overwrites a historical deployment snapshot — if the new deployment after a promotion has problems, you can still roll back to the pre-promotion deployment following [Rollback And Recovery](/docs/en/deliver/recovery/).

## Troubleshooting links

- [Configuration Precedence](/docs/en/configuration/precedence/)

## Related reference pages

- [Configuration Model](/docs/en/configuration/model/)
- [Handling Secrets Safely](/docs/en/configuration/secrets/)

## Notes

Before promoting, confirm: is the target environment correct, should secrets be regenerated or reused by reference, and do you need to trigger a new deployment immediately after the promote completes.

Source: https://docs.appaloft.com/en/configuration/diff-promote/index.mdx