Create Lapdev Environment
A Lapdev Environment is a running instance of your app inside a Kubernetes cluster.
It's created from an existing App Catalog, which defines which workloads make up your application.
This guide shows how to create personal and shared environments from an App Catalog, and how to create branch environments from a shared environment.
Read Environment to understand environment types and how they work.
Prerequisites
Before creating an environment:
You must have at least one connected Kubernetes cluster (Active in the Lapdev dashboard).
You must have an existing App Catalog that defines your app's workloads.
If you haven't created one yet, see Create an App Catalog.
Start from an App Catalog (Personal or Shared)
Go to the App Catalogs tab in the Lapdev dashboard.
Select the catalog you want to use as the base for your environment.
Click Create Environment.
Select Environment Type (Personal or Shared)
Lapdev supports three environment types depending on your workflow and cost needs. When you create an environment from an App Catalog you can choose between:
Personal Environment
A fully isolated copy of your app, deployed into a per-developer namespace.
Ideal for local testing, debugging, or experimentation without affecting others.
Shared Environment
A single shared version of your app that multiple developers can access.
Useful for integration testing or a team staging setup.
Branch environments are created from an existing shared environment. See the next section for that workflow.
Create a Branch Environment
Branch environments reuse an existing shared environment as their baseline.
Go to the Environments tab in the Lapdev dashboard.
Open the shared environment you want to branch from.
Click Create Branch Environment.
Select the services you plan to modify and provide a name/description for the branch.
Click Create.
Only the services you modify are duplicated alongside the shared workloads in the same namespace; everything else continues to run on the shared versions.
🧠 Use branch environments for feature work — they're lightweight, fast to spin up, and cost-efficient.
Verify and Access Your Environment
After creation:
The environment will appear in the Environments list.
Lapdev automatically provisions:
All workloads from the App Catalog
Associated ConfigMaps, Secrets, and Services
Kubernetes namespace and networking
You can monitor status, logs, and sync state directly from the dashboard.
Next Steps
Your environment is ready! You can now:
Create Preview URLs for HTTPS access to your services
Use Devbox to connect locally for live debugging
Learn more about Environments
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