Setting up an Environment

Lowcoder Enterprise Edition supports multiple Environments (or Instances) like Development, Staging, or Production to support structured deployment workflows. Each environment runs as an independent Lowcoder instance but connects to a central PostgreSQL database for coordination and control.

There are two ways to register environments in Lowcoder Enterprise. Via the UI, or better, automatically via plugin bootstrapping.

Prerequisites for All Environments

Before setting up an environment (via either method), ensure the following:

1. A Central PostgreSQL Database

   • Required and shared across all environments (Dev, Staging, Prod)

   • Used to register metadata, deployment relations, and staging logic

2. Enterprise Plugin and License

   • You must have the .jar plugin file and .lic license file installed

Option 1: Automatic Registration (Recommended)

The simplest and most robust way to create an environment is via auto-registration at startup.

Steps:

1. Prepare the Central PostgreSQL

   • Ensure it is accessible to all Lowcoder environments

   • Pre-create a database such as lowcoder_enterprise with the correct user and password

2. Install Plugin & License

   • Place the plugin .jar file at: /lowcoder-stacks/plugins

   • Place the license file at: /lowcoder-stacks/licenses

3. Add Enterprise ENV Variables to your docker-compose or environment file for each Instance

LOWCODER_PLUGINS_DIR=/lowcoder-stacks/plugins
PLUGIN_ENTERPRISE_ENV_TYPE=DEV
PLUGIN_ENTERPRISE_DATABASE_URL=postgresql://localhost:5432/lowcoder_enterprise
PLUGIN_ENTERPRISE_DATABASE_USER=lowcoder
PLUGIN_ENTERPRISE_DATABASE_PASSWORD=yourSecurePassword
PLUGIN_ENTERPRISE_LICENSE_LOCATION=/lowcoder-stacks/licenses
PLUGIN_ENTERPRISE_REDIS_URL=redis://localhost:6379
PLUGIN_ENTERPRISE_MAXMIND_ACCOUNT_ID=124
PLUGIN_ENTERPRISE_MAXMIND_LICENSE=yourMaxMindAPIKey

1. Restart the Target Environment

   • When the Lowcoder instance starts, the Enterprise Plugin detects the config and automatically registers the environment into the central PostgreSQL instance

Option 2: Manual Setup via UI

Steps:

1. Log in to the Source (Master) Environment (typically your DEV environment)

   • Use an Admin account

   • Navigate to the Environments page

2. Click “Add Environment” Fill out the form with:

   • Environment Name

   • Stage Type (e.g., Dev, Test, Production)

   • API Service URL (the URL of the instance to connect)

   • API Key (created manually on the target Lowcoder instance)

3. Set Environment Role

   • Toggle ON if the new environment is to act as a Master (optional)

4. Click "Create Environment"

   • The environment will now be registered and ready for staging and deployment operations.

   

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📌 Notes for API Key (Manual Setup)

To generate an API key for an instance:

1. Log in to the target instance

2. Use an Admin account

3. Navigate to Your User Profile → API Keys

4. Generate and copy the API key to use in the manual setup form