Platform Capabilities

These are the features that go beyond basic environment creation. You don't need them all on day one — start with the basics and adopt more as your team grows.

New to MicroStax? Start with Getting Started and the CLI Guide first. Come back here when you're ready for overlays, snapshots, and governance.

Only Deploy What Changed

When you create an overlay, MicroStax compares your Blueprint to the baseline and deploys only the services that are different. Everything else stays connected to the baseline — no duplication.

• Changed and new services are deployed in the overlay.
• Unchanged services stay bridged to the baseline (no extra resources used).
• Services start in the right order based on their dependencies.
• If your overlay conflicts with the baseline, MicroStax blocks it before anything is provisioned.

How it works internally: PAT-01, PAT-05

Baselines, Overlays, and Overlay Chains

MicroStax Blueprints use three routing modes:

Mode	What it means
isolated	A fully independent environment. No sharing.
baseline	A stable shared environment that other environments build on top of.
overlay	A lightweight environment that only runs your changed services.

You can also chain overlays together — an overlay can inherit from another overlay, which inherits from a baseline:

• Each overlay only runs the services it changed.
• MicroStax figures out which environment provides each service and routes traffic automatically.
• You can inspect the full chain to see exactly which environment owns what.

How it works internally: PAT-02, PAT-03

Stable Routing Across Environments

When services talk to each other across overlay boundaries, MicroStax makes sure traffic goes to the right place — every time.

• Each service gets a stable identity tied to its environment.
• Header-based routing pins requests to the correct overlay.
• Share links and routed environments work consistently, even if you replay or restore from a snapshot.

How it works internally: PAT-06, PAT-10, PAT-11

Save, Restore, and Replay

Capture your environment's data and execution state so you can go back to a known good point.

• Snapshots: Save a copy of your database or service state from a running environment.
• Restore: Spin up a new environment from a saved snapshot instead of re-seeding from scratch.
• Replay: Re-run the environment's execution graph to validate that everything comes up the same way twice.

How it works internally: PAT-04, PAT-08

Reusable Data Seeds

Manage test data as versioned, shareable packages instead of one-off SQL scripts.

• Blueprints can run init and seed steps automatically during provisioning.
• Teams can publish seed packages to a shared registry.
• Other teams can search for, install, and run published seeds.
• Seeds and snapshots can be combined — restore a snapshot, then apply a seed on top.

Traffic Mirroring and Behavioral Diffs

Test your changes against real traffic without touching production.

• Mirror baseline traffic to a shadow environment.
• MicroStax compares the shadow's responses against the baseline and flags differences.
• Diff reports show exactly where your API behavior changed.
• Supports multiple modes: sidecar, replace, and mirror.

How it works internally: PAT-09, PAT-07

Region and Compliance Controls

Run environments in the right region, automatically.

• MicroStax checks data residency rules before creating or moving an environment — not after.
• If a target region is restricted, the move is blocked or a compliant alternative is suggested.
• Environments can be safely moved between regions with zero downtime and a full audit trail.
• The system checks that the target region has enough capacity before starting.

How it works internally: PAT-12, PAT-14, PAT-15, PAT-16, PAT-17

Governance and Audit Logs

Track who did what, enforce policies, and generate compliance reports.

• Gate baseline promotions behind governance approval policies.
• Every destructive action (delete, scale, promote) is logged with full context.
• View governance decisions (allowed/blocked) in the dashboard or CLI.
• Generate org-level compliance reports.

How it works internally: PAT-13, PAT-07

Cost Controls

Overlays and auto-shutdown mean you only pay for what you use.

• Auto-shutdown: Idle environments shut down automatically after a configurable timeout.
• TTL policies: Set a maximum lifetime per environment.
• Cost attribution: microstax env cost <env-id> shows how much each environment costs and how much overlays are saving.
• Resource limits: Org and plan limits prevent runaway usage.

How it works internally: PAT-18, PAT-19

Recommended Adoption Path

1. Start with isolated environments and Blueprint validation.
2. Promote a stable environment to a baseline.
3. Move active feature work to overlays.
4. Add snapshots and seeds for realistic test data.
5. Use mirroring, diffs, replay, and governance once your team shares baselines.