Multi-stage environment workflow for TYPO3

TYPO3 projects typically move through several stages on their way from development to production. This document provides an overview of common environment stages, deployment flows, and best practices for managing TYPO3 instances across these stages.

Separating your TYPO3 project into multiple environments allows you to:

  • Develop and test changes safely without impacting the live site.
  • Collaborate in a team across shared environments.
  • Perform client acceptance testing on a production-like system.
  • Promote stable changes toward production in a controlled manner.

Table of contents

Subchapters

Common environment stages

Local development

Individual developers work on their local machines using tools such as ddev, Docker, or LAMP stacks. This stage is ideal for:

  • Developing new features or bug fixes.
  • Running automated tests.
  • Experimenting without affecting others.

Integration / development environment

A shared environment where multiple developers push and integrate their changes. Useful for:

  • Team-wide integration testing.
  • Early feedback loops.
  • Continuous integration pipelines.

Staging / pre-production environment

A production-like environment for:

  • Client or stakeholder acceptance testing.
  • Verifying deployment procedures.
  • Performance or load testing.

Production / live environment

The final, customer-facing live site. Key requirements include:

  • High availability.
  • Security hardening.
  • Data integrity and performance optimization.

Best practices

  • Mirror production as closely as possible in staging.
  • Isolate environment-specific configuration.
  • Never use real production data in earlier stages without proper anonymization.
  • Automate deployment and testing where possible.
  • Control access to non-production environments.

Separating your TYPO3 project into multiple environments helps ensure reliable development and deployment workflows. Combine this conceptual workflow with TYPO3’s environment configuration features for maximum flexibility and security.