Create environment

In this walk through, we will make a simple change to an example frontend repository and create our first ephemeral environment using Lifecycle.

1. Fork the Repository

Fork the lifecycle-examples repository to your org or personal account and install your newly minted GitHub App to the forked repository.

Navigate to https://github.com/settings/apps (for personal accounts) or https://github.com/organizations/<org>/settings/apps (for org accounts).
Find the Lifecycle GitHub App and click on Edit.
Choose Install App from sidebar and click the Settings icon.
Select the forked repository from the list and select Save.

2. Create a New Branch

Clone the repo and create a branch named lfc-config:

or if you are using GitHub Desktop, you can create a new branch from the UI.

3. Update Lifecycle Configuration

Open the lifecycle.yaml file in the root of the repository and update the frontend service’s repository to your github username or org.

Before:

After:

4. Commit & Push Your Changes

5. Create a Pull Request

Open a Pull Request (PR) from lfc-config to main in the forked repository.
Submit the PR.

6. Lifecycle PR Comment

After submitting the PR, you’ll see a GitHub comment from Lifecycle on your pull request.

🔹 This PR comment is the mission control for your ephemeral environment. It provides:

A status update of the build and deploy process.
A list of services configured for the environment.
A link to the Lifecycle UI where you can view logs, deployments, and environment details.

🚫

If there is no comment from Lifecycle, it means the app is not configured correctly or the GitHub App is not installed in the repository. Please refer to the Missing Comment page for more information.

7. Add `lifecycle-status-comments!` label

The additional label lifecycle-status-comments! provides more detailed information about the environment status and links to access the running application.

🔹 The comments provides insights into:

Build & Deploy Status: Track when your environment is ready.
Environment URLs: Access the running frontend app.
Telemetry Links: Links to telemetry, build and deploy logs. (if enabled)

8. Wait for Deployment

Wait for the builds & deploys to complete. Once the status updates to deployed, your environment is live! 🚀

When a new commit is pushed to your pull request Lifecycle automatically builds and deploys again so you always have the latest version of the application.

If there are any errors during the build or deploy process, the environment will not be created, and you will see an error message in the Lifecycle comment.

You can check the logs from lifecycle-worker pods in your cluster to debug the issue:
kubectl logs deploy/lifecycle-worker -n lifecycle-app -f

9. Checkout the deployed application

Once the deployment is complete, you can access your environment at the URL provided in the Lifecycle comment on your pull request. Click on the frontend link to open your application in a new tab.

The application has two simple pages:

/tasks – A simple to-do list.
/variables – Displays all environment variables from the container.

Next Steps

Now that your first ephemeral environment is ready, move on to the next section where we:

🧪 Test the environment.
🧭 Explore the comments and logs.
⚙️ Customize the configuration.

Additional Configuration Explore environment