UFO_ENV

Ufo’s behavior is controlled by the UFO_ENV environment variable. For example, the UFO_ENV variable is used to layer different ufo variable files together to make it easy to specify settings for different environments like production and development. This is covered thoroughly in the Variables section. UFO_ENV defaults to development when not set.

Setting UFO_ENV

The UFO_ENV can be set in several ways:

1. Exported as an environment variable to your shell - This takes the second highest precedence.
2. From the aws_profiles setting in your settings.yml file - This takes the lowest precedence.

As an environment variable

export UFO_ENV=production
ufo ship demo-web

You can set UFO_ENV in your ~/.profile.

In .ufo/settings.yml

The most interesting way to set UFO_ENV is with the aws_profiles setting in .ufo/settings.yml. Let’s say you have a ~/.ufo/settings.yml with the following:

development:
  aws_profile: my-dev-profile

production:
  aws_profile: my-prod-profile

In this case, when you set AWS_PROFILE to switch AWS profiles, ufo picks this up and maps the AWS_PROFILE value to the specified UFO_ENV using the aws_profiles lookup. Example:

AWS_PROFILE=my-prod-profile => UFO_ENV=production
AWS_PROFILE=my-dev-profile => UFO_ENV=development
AWS_PROFILE=whatever => UFO_ENV=development # since there are no profiles that match

Notice how AWS_PROFILE=whatever results in UFO_ENV=development. This is because there are no matching aws_profiles in the settings.yml. More info on settings is available at settings.

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