Overview

You build your data model on a development instance, and at some point that work has to reach staging and production. Environment Sync makes that a git workflow: the Directus CLI (directus-cli, or its short alias d6s) writes an instance's schema and configuration to JSON files you commit, and applies those files to any instance you point it at.

d6s sync pull --from staging     # write the instance's schema + configuration to files
d6s sync diff --to production    # preview what pushing those files would change
d6s sync push --to production    # apply them

Because the files live in your repository, your normal review workflow applies: schema changes show up in pull requests, environments are brought up to date through git history, and a bad change is a revert away from being found. (d6s sync on its own runs a small interactive wizard that pulls and pushes in one pass.)

The CLI is built to be safe to point at production: diff never applies anything, deletions always require their own explicit consent, and a record that could match more than one target record is asked about, never guessed. How It Works covers the full safety model.

What syncs

• Schema: every collection, field, and relation, including custom fields on system collections.
• Configuration: roles, policies, access, permissions, flows, operations, dashboards, panels, settings, and media-library folders.
• Opt-in: user accounts (with every secret column stripped) and translation strings.

Your own collections' content, the rows in the tables you create, is not synced. Environment Sync moves the shape of a project and its configuration, not its data.

Before you start

• Both instances must run the same Directus version, patch release included. The server refuses cross-version schema changes because some patch releases change the schema format. Align your environments before you sync them.
• An admin credential for each instance. The schema and configuration endpoints the CLI uses are admin-only. A static token from an admin user is the usual choice.
• A git repository. The files the CLI writes are only useful committed. Any repository works; many teams use the one that already holds their Directus deployment configuration.

Where to go