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Display Environment Type

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Display Environment Type

by Stoil Dobreff

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Description

WordPress 5.5 introduced a way to differentiate between environment types (development, staging, production). This plugin shows your site’s environment type in the admin bar and the dashboard “At a Glance” widget.

More info about the feature

To gain additional control — for example, setting the environment or other values from the WP admin (when wp-config.php is writable) — consider installing our other plugin 0 Day Analytics.

Recommended Plugins

  • 0 Day Analytics — a powerful plugin for sites that need more insight into errors and runtime behavior. It includes a Cron manager, a Transient manager (database-backed), DB manager, Snippet manager, Mail manager, Plugin Version Switcher available from the Plugins page and many more.
  1. Install and activate the plugin from the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
  1. Admin bar display (production).

    Admin bar display (production).

  2. Admin bar display (staging).

    Admin bar display (staging).

  3. Admin bar display (development).

    Admin bar display (development).

  4. Admin bar display (custom).

    Admin bar display (custom).

  5. The "At a Glance" widget.

    The "At a Glance" widget.

Can I set a custom color for my environment types?

Colors are intentionally fixed to avoid confusion. If colors were configurable, they’d need to be identical across all related servers to remain consistent.

What happens if I define custom environment types?

Custom environment types were briefly supported in WordPress 5.5 but were removed in 5.5.1. This plugin does not support custom types.

Why don’t non-administrators see the environment type on the front end?

By default, the environment type is shown only to users with administrative capabilities. This avoids exposing a prominent colored indicator to regular subscribers and other non-admin users.

For additional control, use the det_display_environment_type filter hook. Example:

function rt_det_display_filter( $display ) {
    // Disable the environment type display for user ID 2.
    return ( get_current_user_id() !== 2 );
}
add_filter( 'det_display_environment_type', 'rt_det_display_filter' );

Helpful Reminder

By ericsackett on April 9, 2025

Easy to see reminder of which version of the site I'm on.

This is what a developer needs

By drinkmaker on January 24, 2024

Five stars for Display Environment Type!

Huge thanks to the author for creating this gem. The plugin might be small, but it's incredibly useful, doing exactly what you'd expect without any unnecessary clutter. No settings hassle – just install and get to work seamlessly.

Yes, you are working on the live site - PAY ATTENTION!

By Bjarne Oldrup (oldrup) on April 26, 2022

I switch a LOT between production sites and a clone made for testing, when creating a real staging environment is not possible. More than once, I have unintentionally made changes to the wrong instance of the site. That's no fun. Display Environment Type makes it very clear what I'm working on, when I should pay extra attention. Recommended.

Nice little helper

By Bego Mario Garde (pixolin) on August 21, 2020

Have you ever accidentally added test content to a productive website? You can now define a constant in your wp-config.php to distinguish between development, staging and productuion sites. To make this visible, this lean but helpful plugin adds an indicator to the admin bar and dashboard widget which helps to avoid mistakes as adding "Lorem ipsum" to your productive site. 🙂 Plugin works like a charm. No settings needed. Install, activate and feel happy.

1.6.0 (2025-12-18)

  • Code improvements. Added the Gutenberg menu. 0 Day Analytics introduced.

1.5.0 (2024-07-01)

  • Code improvements; shows the constants’ values regardless of the WP_DEBUG constant. WP Control plugin introduced.

1.4.0 (2024-04-07)

  • Code improvements and UI fixes — show the icon on mobile and set colors in the “At a Glance” widget. Added WordPress version in the drop-down menu.

1.3.5 (2025-04-04)

  • Added a drop-down submenu with WP constants and their values (enabled / disabled).

1.3.4 (2024-12-20)

  • Added a filter hook to modify the environment’s display name (thanks @erniecom).

1.3.3 (2024-07-05)

  • Internationalization improvements by @tekapo.

1.3.2 (2023-11-10)

  • Accessibility improvements by @mrwweb.

1.3.1 (2022-03-30)

  • Skip loading the CSS file on the front end if the toolbar is hidden (thanks @tflight).

1.3 (2020-08-25)

  • Code refactor (thank you, @markjaquith).
  • Environment type now hidden by default for subscribers.

1.2.1 (2020-08-23)

  • Removed the distracting hover effect (thank you, @markjaquith).
  • Hardening against XSS (props @markjaquith).

1.2 (2020-08-21)

  • Adds a filter hook to allow you to determine whether the environment is displayed.

1.1 (2020-08-21)

  • Added a conditional front-end display (admins only).
  • Improved plugin initialization.

1.0.2 (2020-08-21)

  • Removed the (unstyled) display on the front-end admin bar.
  • Added a FAQ section to the readme file.

1.0.1 (2020-08-21)

  • Fixed the plugin description and plugin URI.

1.0 (2020-08-20)

  • Initial release.
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