Environment management

Chargeworx maintains four distinct environments for development, testing, and production deployments. Each environment has isolated infrastructure, databases, and configuration.

Environment overview

Development

Active development and feature testing

Staging

Pre-production testing and QA validation

Alpha

Internal testing and stakeholder review

Production

Live customer-facing environment

Environment configurations

Development

Purpose: Active development and feature testing Infrastructure:

Windows Server instances on AWS
Development SQL Server databases
Development Identity Server
Development payment processor sandbox

Configuration file: appsettings.Development.json Key settings:

{
  "ConnectionStrings": {
    "ChargeworxDb": "Development database connection",
    "ChargeworxCreditCardDb": "Development credit card database",
    "ChargeworxReportDb": "Development reporting database",
    "ChargeworxKeyDb": "Development key storage database"
  },
  "IdentityServerConfiguration": {
    "Authority": "https://dev-identity.chargeworx.com"
  }
}

Access:

API: https://dev-api.chargeworx.com
Admin: https://dev-admin.chargeworx.com

Staging

Purpose: Pre-production testing and QA validation Infrastructure:

Windows Server instances on AWS
Staging SQL Server databases
Staging Identity Server
Payment processor test environment

Configuration file: appsettings.Staging.json Key settings:

{
  "ConnectionStrings": {
    "ChargeworxDb": "Staging database connection",
    "ChargeworxCreditCardDb": "Staging credit card database",
    "ChargeworxReportDb": "Staging reporting database",
    "ChargeworxKeyDb": "Staging key storage database"
  },
  "IdentityServerConfiguration": {
    "Authority": "https://staging-identity.chargeworx.com"
  }
}

Access:

API: https://staging-api.chargeworx.com
Admin: https://staging-admin.chargeworx.com

Alpha

Purpose: Internal testing and stakeholder review Infrastructure:

Windows Server instances on AWS
Alpha SQL Server databases
Alpha Identity Server
Payment processor test environment

Configuration file: appsettings.Alpha.json Key settings:

{
  "ConnectionStrings": {
    "ChargeworxDb": "Alpha database connection",
    "ChargeworxCreditCardDb": "Alpha credit card database",
    "ChargeworxReportDb": "Alpha reporting database",
    "ChargeworxKeyDb": "Alpha key storage database"
  },
  "IdentityServerConfiguration": {
    "Authority": "https://alpha-identity.chargeworx.com"
  }
}

Access:

API: https://alpha-api.chargeworx.com
Admin: https://alpha-admin.chargeworx.com

Production

Purpose: Live customer-facing environment Infrastructure:

Windows Server instances on AWS (multi-AZ)
Production SQL Server databases (with replication)
Production Identity Server (high availability)
Live payment processor credentials

Configuration file: appsettings.Production.json Key settings:

{
  "ConnectionStrings": {
    "ChargeworxDb": "Production database connection",
    "ChargeworxCreditCardDb": "Production credit card database",
    "ChargeworxReportDb": "Production reporting database",
    "ChargeworxKeyDb": "Production key storage database"
  },
  "IdentityServerConfiguration": {
    "Authority": "https://identity.chargeworx.com"
  }
}

Access:

API: https://api.chargeworx.com
Admin: https://admin.chargeworx.com

Configuration management

Application settings

Each environment uses environment-specific configuration files that override base settings in appsettings.json. Configuration hierarchy:

appsettings.json - Base configuration
appsettings.{Environment}.json - Environment-specific overrides
Environment variables - Runtime overrides
AWS Secrets Manager - Sensitive credentials

Database connections

The platform uses four separate databases:

ChargeworxDb
ChargeworxCreditCardDb
ChargeworxReportDb
ChargeworxKeyDb

Main application databaseContains:

Companies and projects
Users and authentication
Transactions
Payment processors
Background processes

Identity Server configuration

Each environment has its own Identity Server instance:

{
  "IdentityServerConfiguration": {
    "Authority": "https://{env}-identity.chargeworx.com",
    "ApiName": "chargeworx-api",
    "ApiSecret": "stored-in-secrets-manager",
    "RequireHttpsMetadata": true
  }
}

Payment processor configuration

Payment processors use environment-specific credentials: CyberSource:

{
  "CybersourceConfiguration": {
    "MerchantId": "environment-specific-merchant-id",
    "ApiKey": "stored-in-secrets-manager",
    "SharedSecret": "stored-in-secrets-manager",
    "RunEnvironment": "apitest.cybersource.com" // or "api.cybersource.com" for production
  }
}

PayPal/PayFlow:

{
  "PayFlowConfiguration": {
    "Partner": "PayPal",
    "Vendor": "environment-specific-vendor",
    "User": "environment-specific-user",
    "Password": "stored-in-secrets-manager",
    "HostAddress": "pilot-payflowpro.paypal.com" // or "payflowpro.paypal.com" for production
  }
}

Secrets management

Sensitive configuration values are stored in AWS Secrets Manager:

Storing secrets

# Store database connection string
aws secretsmanager create-secret \
  --name chargeworx/staging/database \
  --secret-string "Server=...;Database=...;User Id=...;Password=..."

# Store payment processor credentials
aws secretsmanager create-secret \
  --name chargeworx/staging/cybersource \
  --secret-string '{"ApiKey":"...","SharedSecret":"..."}'

Retrieving secrets

The application retrieves secrets at startup:

// Startup.cs
var secretsManager = new AmazonSecretsManagerClient();
var secretResponse = await secretsManager.GetSecretValueAsync(
    new GetSecretValueRequest { SecretId = "chargeworx/staging/database" }
);
var connectionString = secretResponse.SecretString;

Environment promotion

Development → Staging

Merge feature branch to develop
Verify development deployment
Create release branch: sharpdev/release/v{version}
Automatic deployment to Staging
Run QA test suite
Verify functionality

Staging → Alpha

Merge release branch to sharpdev/main
Automatic deployment to Alpha
Stakeholder review and testing
Performance validation
Security scan

Alpha → Production

Create pull request from sharpdev/main to main
Require approvals from reviewers
Merge to main branch
Automatic deployment to Production
Monitor deployment health
Verify production functionality

Environment variables

Key environment variables used by the application:

Variable	Description	Example
`ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT`	Current environment name	`Production`
`AWS_REGION`	AWS region for services	`us-east-1`
`SECRETS_PREFIX`	Prefix for Secrets Manager	`chargeworx/production`
`LOG_LEVEL`	Logging verbosity	`Information`

Monitoring and health checks

Health check endpoints

Each environment exposes health check endpoints:

GET /Health

Response:

{
  "status": "Healthy",
  "checks": {
    "database": "Healthy",
    "identityServer": "Healthy",
    "cache": "Healthy"
  }
}

Application monitoring

CloudWatch Logs - Application and IIS logs
CloudWatch Metrics - Performance metrics
SumoLogic - Centralized log aggregation
AWS X-Ray - Distributed tracing

Troubleshooting

Configuration not loading

Verify environment variable ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT is set correctly
Check configuration file exists in deployment directory
Review application startup logs
Verify file permissions

Database connection failures

Verify connection string in Secrets Manager
Check database server accessibility
Verify SQL Server authentication
Review firewall rules and security groups

Identity Server authentication fails

Verify Authority URL is correct
Check Identity Server is running
Verify API credentials in Secrets Manager
Review HTTPS certificate validity

Payment processor errors

Verify processor credentials in Secrets Manager
Check processor environment (test vs production)
Review processor API endpoint configuration
Verify merchant account status

Best practices

Configuration isolation

Never share credentials between environments

Secrets rotation

Regularly rotate sensitive credentials

Environment parity

Keep environments as similar as possible

Monitoring

Monitor all environments for issues

Overview

Architecture

Getting started

Security

API reference

Admin UI

Data

Observability

Deployment

CI/CD

Runbooks

Contributing

​Environment overview

Development

Staging

Alpha

Production

​Environment configurations

​Development

​Staging

​Alpha

​Production

​Configuration management

​Application settings

​Database connections

​Identity Server configuration

​Payment processor configuration

​Secrets management

​Storing secrets

​Retrieving secrets

​Environment promotion

​Development → Staging

​Staging → Alpha

​Alpha → Production

​Environment variables

​Monitoring and health checks

​Health check endpoints

​Application monitoring

​Troubleshooting

​Best practices

Configuration isolation

Secrets rotation

Environment parity

Monitoring

​Related documentation

Environment overview

Environment configurations

Development

Staging

Alpha

Production

Configuration management

Application settings

Database connections

Identity Server configuration

Payment processor configuration

Secrets management

Storing secrets

Retrieving secrets

Environment promotion

Development → Staging

Staging → Alpha

Alpha → Production

Environment variables

Monitoring and health checks

Health check endpoints

Application monitoring

Troubleshooting

Best practices

Related documentation