How would you detect and reduce configuration drift between dev, staging, and production?

Configuration drift between environments

Explains how environment configuration drift causes deployment bugs and how to reduce it.

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Configuration drift happens when environments are no longer configured consistently. For example, staging may use a different feature flag, missing app setting, older database schema, or different identity-provider setup than production. I would reduce drift by defining configuration clearly, using IaC where appropriate, managing secrets separately, and comparing environment settings during deployment.

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Environment configuration, deployment reliability, secrets, app settings, infrastructure drift, and troubleshooting.

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Configuration drift causes bugs that are hard to reproduce because code is the same but environment behavior is different.
Configuration drift happens when environments are no longer configured consistently. For example, staging may use a different feature flag, missing app setting, older database schema, or different identity-provider setup than production. I would reduce drift by defining configuration clearly, using IaC where appropriate, managing secrets separately, and comparing environment settings during deployment.
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A common example is a release that works in staging but fails in production because a Key Vault reference, connection string, or feature flag differs. The trade-off is that environments cannot be identical in size or credentials, but the configuration structure and deployment process should be consistent. I would use templates, naming conventions, config validation, and startup checks for required settings.

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Manually changing production settings without tracking.
Using production secrets in lower environments.
Assuming same code means same behavior.
No validation for required app settings.

How would you detect and reduce configuration drift between dev, staging, and production?

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