Anatomy of a Key

Keys are what makes Ripe work. A Key has several properties that we’re going to go over now.

Names

A key must have a name, and that name may contain characters a-Z, 0-9, ., - and _.

A Key’s name must be unique to a project, regardless of casing. Some edge case duplicate keys:

My.Test.Key
my.test //This key is a duplicate because the section above has reserved the name

The period is used to express sections in a key name. The following example shows this in action for the key My.Test.Bool and My.Test.String:

"My":{
    "Test":{
        "Bool":"",
        "String":""
    }
}

Value Type

A key must have a Value Type this is a type constraint on the key, allowing you to safely assume a key will always be a specific type. Here is a list of the current types and their default values Type|Default

• String	` `
  Boolean	false
  Integer	0
  Decimal	0
  JSON	{}

This assumes the key you’re requesting exists in the project you’re requesting against. Any key that does not exist when making the request will return null.

Key Visibility

When creating and editing a key its important to remember the visibility of the key. A key can be either Public or Private, and this visibility cannot be changed later without deleting the key.

This visibility separation allows you to use a specific set of keys in places other than a background server, such as in a mobile app. This way you can keep sensitive and non-sensitive data in the same environment.

Key : Project : Environment Relationship

A Key belongs in a Project, which can have many keys. When creating a key, every environment is automatically assigned the default Value

A Value can be assigned to an Environment for a key. Every environment can have one value for one key. This means that configurations between Environments can have completely different values, but will always have the same keys within the Project.

Optional Key Properties

• Description: This allows you to add context to what the key is for. This property can be modified after creation, and does not change between environments.
• Tags: Tags can be created for a project and assigned to a key. This property can be modified after creation, and does not change between environments.
• Value: A value can be assigned to a key per environment. This can be modified after creation.
• Rules: A key can have several rules to return a specific value based on select criteria. Rules are unique per environment.
• Is Sticky: A key can be set as Is Sticky this an environment specific property, that when true, prevents promotions from overriding the value. This property can help reduce noise generated in promotions for values that never change.