Environments

Environments are named sets of key-value variables that let you switch between configurations without editing individual requests. A typical setup includes environments like "Development", "Staging", and "Production", each defining the same variable names with different values.

Creating and Managing Environments

1. Click the environment icon in the title bar to open the Environments panel.
2. Click Create New Environment and enter a name (e.g., "Development").
3. To edit an existing environment, select it from the list and modify its variables.
4. To delete an environment, open its context menu and select Delete.

Adding Variables

Each environment contains a list of key-value pairs. To add a variable:

1. Open the environment editor for the target environment.
2. Enter a key (e.g., baseUrl) and a value (e.g., https://dev.api.example.com).
3. Add as many variables as needed. Common examples:

Key	Value (Development)	Value (Production)
baseUrl	https://dev.api.example.com	https://api.example.com
authToken	dev-token-abc123	prod-token-xyz789
apiVersion	v2	v2

Switching Environments

Select the active environment from the dropdown in the title bar. Only one environment is active at a time. All variable substitutions use the active environment's values. Selecting "No Environment" disables substitution.

Variable Substitution

Wrap any variable name in double curly braces to reference it: . LitePost replaces these placeholders with the corresponding value from the active environment at the time the request is sent.

Where Substitution Works

Variables are resolved in:

• URLs -- /api/users/
• Headers -- Authorization: Bearer
• Request bodies -- {"tenant": "", "role": "admin"}
• Query parameters -- page=&limit=
• Authentication credentials -- API keys, bearer tokens, basic auth username/password fields

Example

Given an environment with:

Key	Value
baseUrl	https://dev.api.example.com
userId	42

A request to /api/users/ resolves to:

GET https://dev.api.example.com/api/users/42

How Variables Get Populated

Variables can be set through three mechanisms.

Manual Entry

Open the environment editor and type key-value pairs directly. This is the most straightforward approach for static configuration like base URLs, API keys, and default parameters.

Pre-Request Scripts

Pre-request scripts run before each request is sent and can programmatically set environment variables using the lp.environment.set() function:

// Generate a timestamp before each request
lp.environment.set("timestamp", Date.now().toString());

// Compute a derived value
lp.environment.set("requestId", crypto.randomUUID());

This is useful for values that need to be computed dynamically, such as timestamps, nonces, or derived tokens.

Response Extraction Rules

Response extraction rules automatically save values from a response into environment variables. After a request completes, the extraction engine pulls data from the response (e.g., a JSON field, a header value) and writes it to the specified variable.

For example, after a login request returns {"access_token": "eyJ..."}, an extraction rule can save the token to so subsequent requests use it automatically.

This enables chaining requests: authenticate once, extract the token, and use it in every following request without manual copy-paste.

Persistence

Environments are automatically saved to disk and persist across application sessions. There is no manual save step -- changes are written as you make them. Environment data is stored locally in a JSON file managed by LitePost's file system plugin.