Environments

Environment Overview

Brandparser provides two environments to help you develop and test your integration before going live.

Both environments use the same API endpoints and behave identically. The difference is in billing and key management.

Staging Environment

Use staging keys for:

• Local development
• Integration testing
• CI/CD pipelines
• Exploring the API

Staging API calls are tracked for billing at the same rate as production. This ensures your usage estimates during development reflect actual costs.

Creating a Staging Key

1. Go to Settings > API Keys
2. Click Create API Key
3. Select Staging as the environment
4. Click Create

# Use your staging key for development
export BRANDPARSER_API_KEY=bp_stag_your_staging_key

Production Environment

Use production keys for:

• Live customer-facing applications
• Production deployments
• Any system serving real users

Creating a Production Key

1. Go to Settings > API Keys
2. Click Create API Key
3. Select Production as the environment
4. Click Create

Best Practices

Separate Keys by Environment

Use different API keys for different deployment environments:

# Development
BRANDPARSER_API_KEY=bp_stag_dev_key

# Staging/QA
BRANDPARSER_API_KEY=bp_stag_qa_key

# Production
BRANDPARSER_API_KEY=bp_prod_production_key

Environment-Specific Configuration

// config.js
const config = {
  development: {
    apiKey: process.env.BRANDPARSER_STAGING_KEY,
    baseUrl: "https://api.brandparser.com",
  },
  production: {
    apiKey: process.env.BRANDPARSER_PRODUCTION_KEY,
    baseUrl: "https://api.brandparser.com",
  },
};

export default config[process.env.NODE_ENV || "development"];

Usage Tracking

Both staging and production calls are tracked for billing purposes. You can view your usage breakdown by environment in your dashboard under Settings > Usage.

Usage is metered per parse request. Polling for results (GET requests) does not count toward usage.

Switching Environments

To switch between environments, simply use a different API key. No code changes are required - the API endpoints are identical.

# Staging
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer bp_stag_xxx" ...

# Production
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer bp_prod_xxx" ...

FAQ

Are staging and production data separate?

No. Brands created in staging are real brands in your workspace. The environment designation is primarily for key management and usage tracking.

Can I use staging keys in production?

Technically yes, but we recommend against it. Using properly scoped keys helps you:

• Track usage by environment
• Rotate keys independently
• Maintain security boundaries

Is there a free tier or sandbox?

There is no separate sandbox environment. Use staging keys for testing - usage is tracked but you can control costs by limiting test volume.