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+@title = "Working with environments"
+@nav_title = "Environments"
+@summary = "How to partition the nodes into separate environments."
+
+With environments, you can divide your nodes into different and entirely separate sets. For example, you might have sets of nodes for 'testing', 'staging' and 'production'.
+
+Typically, the nodes in one environment are totally isolated from the nodes in a different environment. Each environment will have its own separate database, for example.
+
+There are a few exceptions to this rule: backup nodes, for example, will by default attempt to back up data from all the environments (excluding local).
+
+## Assign an environment
+
+To assign an environment to a node, you just set the `environment` node property. This is typically done with tags, although it is not necessary. For example:
+
+`tags/production.json`
+
+    {
+      "environment": "production"
+    }
+
+`nodes/mynode.json`
+
+    {
+      "tags": ["production"]
+    }
+
+There are several built-in tags that will apply a value for the environment:
+
+* `production`: An environment for nodes that are in use by end users.
+* `development`: An environment to be used for nodes that are being used for experiments or staging.
+* `local`: This environment gets automatically applied to all nodes that run only on local VMs. Nodes with a `local` environment are treated special and excluded from certain calculations.
+
+You don't need to use these and you can add your own.
+
+## Environment commands
+
+* `leap env` -- List the available environments and disply which one is active.
+* `leap env pin ENV` -- Pin the current environment to ENV.
+* `leap env unpin` -- Remove the environment pin.
+
+The environment pin is only active for your local machine: it is not recorded in the provider directory and not shared with other users.
+
+## Environment specific JSON files
+
+You can add JSON configuration files that are only applied when a specific environment is active. For example, if you create a file `provider.production.json`, these values will only get applied to the `provider.json` file for the `production` environment.
+
+This will also work for services and tags. For example:
+
+    provider.local.json
+    services/webapp.development.json
+    tags/seattle.production.json
+
+In this example, `local`, `development`, and `production` are the names of environments.
+
+## Bind an environment to a Platform version
+
+If you want to ensure that a particular environment is bound to a particular version of the LEAP Platform, you can add a `platform` section to the `provider.ENV.json` file (where ENV is the name of the environment in question).
+
+The available options are `platform.version`, `platform.branch`, or `platform.commit`. For example:
+
+    {
+      "platform": {
+        "version": "1.6.1",
+        "branch": "develop",
+        "commit": "5df867fbd3a78ca4160eb54d708d55a7d047bdb2"
+      }
+    }
+
+You can use any combination of `version`, `branch`, and `commit` to specify the binding. The values for `branch` and `commit` only work if the `leap_platform` directory is a git repository.
+
+The value for `commit` is passed directly through to `git log` to query for a list of acceptable commits. See [[man gitrevisions => https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/gitrevisions.html#_specifying_ranges]] to see how to specify ranges. For example:
+
+* `HEAD^..HEAD` - current commit must be head of the branch.
+* `3172444652af71bd771609d6b80258e70cc82ce9..HEAD` - current commit must be after 3172444652af71bd771609d6b80258e70cc82ce9.
+* `refs/tags/0.6.0rc1..refs/tags/0.6.0rc2` - current commit must be after tag 0.6.0rc1 and before or including tag 0.6.0rc2.
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