Preprod

Preprod, short for pre-production, is a software development environment used to validate new code changes and configurations before they are released to production. It is designed to resemble the production environment as closely as possible, including the same services, network topology, data handling practices, and deployment processes, while remaining isolated from end users.

Its primary purpose is final validation and risk reduction. Preprod hosts functional verification, integration with external systems, performance and load testing, security and compliance checks, and user acceptance testing by internal teams, partners, or customers. Data used in preprod is often copied from production with masking or synthetic data to protect sensitive information while preserving realistic behavior.

Terminology and placement vary by organization. In some teams, preprod is synonymous with staging; in others, it is a distinct gate between staging and production. In continuous delivery pipelines, preprod is typically the last environment before production and may host release candidates, feature flags, or closely mirroring production releases for final checks.

Typical characteristics include automated deployment through CI/CD pipelines, versioned configurations, comprehensive monitoring and alerting, and controlled access. Environments may be ephemeral or long-lived, and preprod deployments can support canary or blue/green testing strategies to validate releases before full production rollout.

Best practices emphasize keeping parity with production to avoid environment drift, using data masking or synthetic data, implementing reproducible builds, maintaining rollback plans, and enforcing access controls and change management to ensure a smooth and safe transition to production.