Ephemeral environments sound like the perfect solution for quickly testing changes. Spin up fresh infrastructure for every feature branch, test in isolation, tear it down when you're done. Clean, efficient, disposable. Simple, right?

Well, there's a bit more to it than that.

In this talk, I'll explore why many teams love the idea of ephemeral environments but struggle to implement them. We'll cover the fundamentals you need to understand before diving in, from how long these environments should live, to whether they need to mirror production, to where your data comes from, and what you should use these environments for.

You'll walk away understanding:
- What ephemeral environments are, when they make sense, and what infrastructure maturity you need before attempting this
- How your existing infrastructure choices (Kubernetes, Azure Static Web Apps, virtual machines, PaaS, etc.) influence your implementation approach
- Real-world tradeoffs between the coordination overhead of static environments versus the cost and complexity of ephemeral ones
- Why parameters and variables will be required everywhere, and why they can be frustrating

This is an honest look at what works, what doesn't, and how to bridge the gap between wanting ephemeral environments and successfully running them. I'll show a couple of demos of getting started, so whether you're evaluating ephemeral environments for the first time or looking to understand why your initial experiments didn't stick, this talk will help you make informed decisions about your approach.