# Aliens

New worlds unlocked 🛸 — smarter credential tracking, multi-environment flows, and new integrations land to supercharge your automation universe. The term 'alien' is derived from the Latin word 'alienus', which means 'belonging to another'. In popular culture, aliens are often depicted as beings from other planets with advanced technology and unique physical characteristics

## NEW

### One flow, multiple deployments 🚀

:::note
An _environment_ in Mindflow is a dedicated space that allows you to define and manage credentials with a controlled scope. Think of it as a container for execution context and access credentials that determines how your flow operates when executed.

Environments serve as isolated contexts where your flows can run with different sets of credentials, and execution context. By separating these configurations into different environments, you can maintain a single flow definition while adapting its behavior to different situations (ex: staging vs production), making your automation workflows more flexible and secure.
:::

Previously, Mindflow's "Environment" concept was limited to deploying each flow in just one environment at a time. **Now**, you can deploy the _same_ flow across **multiple environments simultaneously** (limited to the latest version for now, with additional version support coming in a future release). This means your identical flow definition can run with completely different credentials and execution contexts depending on which environment it's operating in.

---

## How can you leverage multiple environments?

Here are several use cases:

- **Flow lifecycle management:** Deploy a flow first in a "Developer" environment to build it, then in a "Staging" environment to test it. Once you are confident, you can deploy it to the "Production" environment.

  <div class="docs-screenshot-compact">

  ![Flow lifecycle management](./assets/flow-lifecycle-management.png)

  </div>

- **Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs):** Utilize a single flow for different customers, each with their own set of credentials. In the following example, we can see a "Just In Time Access" flow deployed for three customers.

  <div class="docs-screenshot-compact">

  ![Managed security service providers mssps](./assets/managed-security-service-providers-mssps.png)

  </div>

- **Team collaboration:** Enable different teams to use the same flow, each within their own environment.

  <div class="docs-screenshot-compact">

  ![Team collaboration](./assets/team-collaboration.png)

  </div>

---

## How to switch between environments

You can easily switch from one environment to another in the designer by using the dropdown menu to the right of the flow name.

   <div class="docs-screenshot-compact">

![Team collaboration](./assets/team-collaboration-2.png)

   </div>

When you switch environments, the credentials are automatically replaced with those from the newly selected environment.

:::note
Execution logs are scoped to the environment. If you are in the designer with the "Dev" environment selected, you won't be able to see logs from the "Prod" environment.
:::

---

## How to deploy or undeploy a flow

To deploy a flow into a new environment, simply click on the top right corner of a flow and select "Deploy flow…"

   <div class="docs-screenshot-compact">

![Team collaboration](./assets/team-collaboration-3.png)

   </div>

   <div class="docs-screenshot-compact">

![Team collaboration](./assets/team-collaboration-4.png)

   </div>

To undeploy a flow, simply click on the `…` menu of a Deployment and select "Undeploy"

   <div class="docs-screenshot-compact">

![Team collaboration](./assets/team-collaboration-5.png)

   </div>

   <div class="docs-screenshot-compact">

![Team collaboration](./assets/team-collaboration-6.png)

   </div>

## CHANGES

### Tracking credential usage 🔑

Ref: #7471

The Environments section now includes helpful new details to better manage your credentials — specifically, the **“last used” timestamp** and a **list of flows** that have accessed each credential.

   <div class="docs-screenshot-compact">

![Team collaboration](./assets/team-collaboration-7.png)

   </div>

## FIXES

- Clicking the AI··Task badge only displays partial information. (#8459)
- AI··Rooms are not correctly configured to use mTLS and fixed IP addresses. (#8435)
- The Stop button in the Log tab does not display the confirmation modal. (#8026)
- Large payloads for AI··Task are not handled properly. (#8191)
- The custom credential is not automatically selected when the correct service is chosen. (#6642)

## INTEGRATIONS

- [Ansible AWX](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/awx/awx/index.html)
- [Arbor MIS Payments (version: 1)](https://arbor-education.com)
- [Deltek Maconomy](https://www.deltek.com/en/erp/maconomy)
- [Freewheel Core (version: 2.0.0)](https://www.freewheel.com/)
- [Freewheel Creative (version: 2.0.0)](https://www.freewheelcreative.com)
- [Freewheel Reporting (version: 2.0.0)](https://www.freewheel.com/)
- [Plaid (version: 2020-09-14_1.635.2)](https://plaid.com)
- [Riot](https://developer.riotgames.com/)
- [Rivile (version: 0.1)](https://www.rivile.lt/en/)
- [Ziflow (version: v1)](https://www.ziflow.com/)