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How do I use environment-specific config?

Keyword: How do I use environment-specific configuration on SmartTouch?

SmartTouch uses Kustomize overlays to manage per-environment configuration. Non-secret values (session limits, timeouts, feature flags) live in a ConfigMap per environment. Secret values live in Vault — see How do I manage secrets securely?.

Goal

Configure the Remote Access Service to use different session timeouts and concurrent session limits in dev, staging, and prod.

Prerequisites

  • The Remote Access Service SSD created and deployed to dev
  • Familiarity with the standard deployment workflow

Configuration layers

smarttouch.yaml (SSD)       ← Default values for all environments
        +
k8s/overlays/dev/           ← Overrides for dev
k8s/overlays/staging/       ← Overrides for staging
k8s/overlays/prod/          ← Overrides for prod

Values in the overlay take precedence over the SSD defaults for that environment.

Steps

Step 1 — Define defaults in the SSD

# smarttouch.yaml
remote-access:
  session-timeout: "30m"
  max-concurrent-sessions: 10
  idle-timeout: "5m"

These values apply to all environments unless overridden.

Step 2 — Create environment-specific overrides

Create a ConfigMap patch for each environment that needs different values.

For dev (relaxed limits for testing):

# k8s/overlays/dev/remote-access-config.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: remote-access-service-config
data:
  SESSION_TIMEOUT: "60m"
  MAX_CONCURRENT_SESSIONS: "5"
  IDLE_TIMEOUT: "15m"

For prod (tighter limits for security):

# k8s/overlays/prod/remote-access-config.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: remote-access-service-config
data:
  SESSION_TIMEOUT: "30m"
  MAX_CONCURRENT_SESSIONS: "50"
  IDLE_TIMEOUT: "5m"

Step 3 — Reference the ConfigMap in the SSD

# smarttouch.yaml
config:
  from-configmap: remote-access-service-config
  env-vars:
    - SESSION_TIMEOUT
    - MAX_CONCURRENT_SESSIONS
    - IDLE_TIMEOUT

SmartTouch injects the ConfigMap values as environment variables into the pod at deploy time.

Step 4 — Read config values in your service code

const sessionTimeout = process.env.SESSION_TIMEOUT || '30m';
const maxSessions    = parseInt(process.env.MAX_CONCURRENT_SESSIONS || '10');
const idleTimeout    = process.env.IDLE_TIMEOUT || '5m';

Step 5 — Verify the correct config is applied

stctl config show --env dev --service remote-access-service

Expected output:

Environment: dev
ConfigMap:   remote-access-service-config

SESSION_TIMEOUT:          60m
MAX_CONCURRENT_SESSIONS:  5
IDLE_TIMEOUT:             15m

Validation

stctl config show --env dev --service remote-access-service
# Values match the dev overlay

stctl config show --env prod --service remote-access-service
# Values match the prod overlay

Troubleshooting

Service is using SSD default values instead of overlay values

The ConfigMap patch may not have been applied. Check whether the overlay file is referenced in k8s/overlays/dev/kustomization.yaml:

resources:
  - ../../base
patches:
  - path: remote-access-config.yaml

If the patch file is not listed, add it and redeploy.

Next steps