Best Practices for Dev, Test, and Prod EDG Servers

Introduction

This document defines best practices for operating TopBraid EDG across Development (Dev), Testing (Test / QA / UAT), and Production (Prod) environments.

These practices apply to both TopBraid EDG Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and on-premises deployments. While infrastructure and operational responsibilities may differ, governance principles, lifecycle patterns, and promotion discipline remain consistent.

By following these practices, organizations can:

• Enable safe experimentation and rapid iteration in Dev

• Validate governance behavior and integrations in Test

• Protect Production from unreviewed or unstable changes

• Establish accountability and auditability for governance decisions

• Support scalable, repeatable, and compliant EDG operations

The intended audience includes:

• EDG administrators

• Ontology and model developers

• Data stewards and governance leads

• Platform and DevOps teams

• Release and change managers

A note on EDG Explorer

Some organizations also use TopBraid EDG Explorer as a read-only environment for broadly published data. Explorer is typically populated from Production EDG and does not provide fine-grained access control—every user can see all published content.

Explorer may act as:

• A downstream integration source

• A broad organizational viewing layer

• A controlled publication target on a defined release cadence

Environment Overview

This section describes the role each EDG environment plays in the governance lifecycle and clarifies expectations around stability, access, and data usage.

Category	Dev	Test (QA / UAT)	Prod
Purpose	Active development and experimentation	Validation before Production	Authoritative governance system
Characteristics	Frequent change, relaxed constraints	Production-like configuration	Stability and strict controls
Data	Synthetic or sample data	Masked or curated Prod subsets	Authoritative governed data

Governance and Operating Principles

The following principles guide how EDG environments should be used and managed.

Principle	Description	Why It Matters
Environment Isolation	Dev, Test, and Prod are distinct systems	Reduces production risk
Promote, Don’t Recreate	Author once, promote forward	Prevents environment drift
Reproducibility	Every Prod change is traceable	Supports auditability and rollback
Least Privilege	Permissions tighten toward Prod	Limits unauthorized changes
Documentation	Promotion rules and exceptions documented	Preserves institutional knowledge

Access Control and Roles

Access and permissions should become progressively more restrictive as assets move toward Production. Governance authority must align with accountability.

Role Definitions and Environment Access

Role	Capabilities	Dev	Test	Prod
Server Administrator	System configuration and maintenance	Full	Full	Full
Power User	Limited admin and configuration	Limited	Limited	Limited
Modeler / Technical Steward	Ontologies, SHACL, workflows	Write	Write	Write (limited)
Developer	Automation and integrations	Write	Limited	Execute-only
Data Steward	Asset curation and quality	Write	Write	Write via workflow
SME	Review and approval	Read	Read	Read
Explorer	Search and view published data	Read	Read	Read

Model and Ontology Management

Ontologies, vocabularies, and SHACL shapes should follow a controlled lifecycle:

• Authored and iterated in Dev

• Validated in Test

• Promoted to Prod only when approved

Best practices include:

• Use unversioned URIs for classes and properties

• Avoid breaking URI changes once in Prod

• Deprecate instead of deleting

• Keep ontologies modular to reduce promotion risk

Asset Lifecycle Management

Dev	Test	Prod
Draft and experimental assets	Validation and steward review	Workflow-governed authoritative assets
Incomplete metadata acceptable	UAT may be required	Deletions are rare and governed

Workflow and Approval Configuration

Dev	Test	Prod
Design and refine workflows	Validate governance behavior	Enforce approvals strictly
Test edge cases	Validate notifications	Changes via promotion only

Data Migration and Promotion

Promotion should follow deliberate, repeatable processes rather than ad-hoc activities. Detailed guidance is covered in Best Practices for EDG Data Migration.

Promotion Strategies

• Export/import at project or collection level

• API-driven promotion

• Git-backed artifacts where applicable

What Gets Promoted

Promote	Do Not Routinely Promote
Ontologies and SHACL	Transactional content
Workflow definitions	Environment-specific data
Governance configuration	User-generated operational data

Validation and Rollback

After promotion:

• Run SHACL validation

• Verify workflows and permissions

• Retain backups for rollback

• Validate integrations before enabling consumers

Integration and Automation

Category	Practices
General	Environment-specific endpoints and credentials
SaaS	Vendor-supported APIs and maintenance alignment
On-Prem	CI/CD integration and password vaults

Data Quality and Validation

• Define SHACL constraints early

• Enforce stricter validation toward Prod

• Monitor validation failures

• Use dashboards and reports for steward oversight

Change Management and Release Planning

• Formal change requests for Prod

• Scheduled release windows

• Freeze periods when required

• Clear stakeholder communication

• Maintain audit trails

Security and Compliance

Category	Practices
General	SSO, audit logs, compliance alignment
SaaS	Shared responsibility awareness
On-Prem	Network hardening and SIEM integration

Backup, Recovery, and Environment Refresh

• Regular backups for all environments

• Defined restore and refresh procedures

• Validated environments after restore

• Clear ownership and accountability

Monitoring and Operational Support

• Monitor availability and performance

• Alert on validation failures

• Define incident response procedures

• Establish escalation paths

Common Pitfalls and Anti-Patterns

• Making “quick fixes” in Prod

• Environment drift from manual edits

• Over-permissive non-Prod access

• Untested workflow changes

• Treating Test as optional

Dev → Test → Prod Promotion Checklist

Phase	Checklist
Before Promotion	Code reviewed, SHACL validated, workflows verified
During Promotion	Scripted process, version captured, activity logged
After Promotion	Validation, smoke tests, stakeholder notification

EDG Studio

EDG Studio is a desktop environment useful for isolated development of scripts, ADS logic, SHACL rules, and customizations.

Key characteristics:

• Completely isolated from EDG servers

• Safe for experimental or destructive testing

• Works well with local Git repositories and IDEs

• Can be treated as a Pre-Dev environment

Artifacts can be promoted from Studio to Dev when ready for team testing.

For setup details, see the EDG Studio documentation.