Mistral AI Multi-Environment Setup

Overview

Configure Mistral AI across development, staging, and production environments.

Prerequisites

• Separate Mistral AI API keys per environment
• Secret management solution (Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, GCP Secret Manager)
• CI/CD pipeline with environment variables
• Environment detection in application

Environment Strategy

Environment	Purpose	API Keys	Model Selection
Development	Local dev	Test keys	mistral-small-latest
Staging	Pre-prod testing	Staging keys	Same as prod
Production	Live traffic	Production keys	Optimized selection

Instructions

Step 1: Configuration Structure

config/
├── mistral/
│   ├── base.ts           # Shared configuration
│   ├── development.ts    # Dev overrides
│   ├── staging.ts        # Staging overrides
│   └── production.ts     # Prod overrides

Step 2: Base Configuration

// config/mistral/base.ts
export const baseConfig = {
  defaultModel: 'mistral-small-latest',
  timeout: 30000,
  maxRetries: 3,
  cache: {
    enabled: true,
    ttlSeconds: 300,
  },
  rateLimits: {
    requestsPerMinute: 60,
    tokensPerMinute: 500000,
  },
};

Step 3: Environment-Specific Configs

// config/mistral/development.ts
import { baseConfig } from './base';

export const developmentConfig = {
  ...baseConfig,
  apiKey: process.env.MISTRAL_API_KEY_DEV,
  debug: true,
  cache: {
    enabled: false, // Disable cache in dev for testing
    ttlSeconds: 60,
  },
  rateLimits: {
    requestsPerMinute: 10,
    tokensPerMinute: 100000,
  },
};

// config/mistral/staging.ts
import { baseConfig } from './base';

export const stagingConfig = {
  ...baseConfig,
  apiKey: process.env.MISTRAL_API_KEY_STAGING,
  debug: false,
  cache: {
    enabled: true,
    ttlSeconds: 300,
  },
};

// config/mistral/production.ts
import { baseConfig } from './base';

export const productionConfig = {
  ...baseConfig,
  apiKey: process.env.MISTRAL_API_KEY_PROD,
  debug: false,
  timeout: 60000,
  maxRetries: 5,
  cache: {
    enabled: true,
    ttlSeconds: 600,
  },
};

Step 4: Environment Detection

// config/mistral/index.ts
import { developmentConfig } from './development';
import { stagingConfig } from './staging';
import { productionConfig } from './production';

type Environment = 'development' | 'staging' | 'production';

const configs = {
  development: developmentConfig,
  staging: stagingConfig,
  production: productionConfig,
};

export function detectEnvironment(): Environment {
  const env = process.env.NODE_ENV || 'development';

  if (env === 'production') return 'production';
  if (env === 'staging' || process.env.VERCEL_ENV === 'preview') return 'staging';
  return 'development';
}

export function getMistralConfig() {
  const env = detectEnvironment();
  const config = configs[env];

  if (!config.apiKey) {
    throw new Error(`MISTRAL_API_KEY not set for environment: ${env}`);
  }

  return {
    ...config,
    environment: env,
  };
}

Step 5: Secret Management

Local Development (.env.local)

# .env.local (git-ignored)
MISTRAL_API_KEY_DEV=your-dev-api-key

GitHub Actions (secrets)

# .github/workflows/deploy.yml
jobs:
  deploy-staging:
    environment: staging
    env:
      MISTRAL_API_KEY_STAGING: ${{ secrets.MISTRAL_API_KEY_STAGING }}

  deploy-production:
    environment: production
    env:
      MISTRAL_API_KEY_PROD: ${{ secrets.MISTRAL_API_KEY_PROD }}

AWS Secrets Manager

# Store secrets
aws secretsmanager create-secret \
  --name mistral/production/api-key \
  --secret-string "your-api-key"

# Retrieve in code
aws secretsmanager get-secret-value \
  --secret-id mistral/production/api-key

import { SecretsManager } from '@aws-sdk/client-secrets-manager';

const sm = new SecretsManager({ region: 'us-east-1' });

async function getMistralApiKey(env: string): Promise<string> {
  const { SecretString } = await sm.getSecretValue({
    SecretId: `mistral/${env}/api-key`,
  });
  return SecretString!;
}

GCP Secret Manager

# Store secret
echo -n "your-api-key" | gcloud secrets create mistral-api-key-prod --data-file=-

# Grant access
gcloud secrets add-iam-policy-binding mistral-api-key-prod \
  --member="serviceAccount:your-sa@project.iam.gserviceaccount.com" \
  --role="roles/secretmanager.secretAccessor"

import { SecretManagerServiceClient } from '@google-cloud/secret-manager';

const client = new SecretManagerServiceClient();

async function getMistralApiKey(env: string): Promise<string> {
  const [version] = await client.accessSecretVersion({
    name: `projects/my-project/secrets/mistral-api-key-${env}/versions/latest`,
  });
  return version.payload?.data?.toString()!;
}

Step 6: Environment Isolation

// Prevent accidental cross-environment operations
function validateEnvironment(operation: string, requiredEnv: Environment): void {
  const currentEnv = detectEnvironment();

  if (currentEnv !== requiredEnv) {
    throw new Error(
      `Operation "${operation}" requires ${requiredEnv} but running in ${currentEnv}`
    );
  }
}

// Protect production-only operations
function requireProduction(operation: string): void {
  validateEnvironment(operation, 'production');
}

// Usage
async function deployModel() {
  requireProduction('deployModel');
  // Production-only code
}

Step 7: Feature Flags by Environment

interface FeatureFlags {
  useNewModel: boolean;
  enableFunctionCalling: boolean;
  maxConcurrentRequests: number;
}

const featureFlags: Record<Environment, FeatureFlags> = {
  development: {
    useNewModel: true,
    enableFunctionCalling: true,
    maxConcurrentRequests: 2,
  },
  staging: {
    useNewModel: true,
    enableFunctionCalling: true,
    maxConcurrentRequests: 5,
  },
  production: {
    useNewModel: false, // Gradual rollout
    enableFunctionCalling: true,
    maxConcurrentRequests: 10,
  },
};

export function getFeatureFlags(): FeatureFlags {
  const env = detectEnvironment();
  return featureFlags[env];
}

Output

• Multi-environment config structure
• Environment detection logic
• Secure secret management
• Production safeguards enabled

Error Handling

Issue	Cause	Solution
Wrong environment	Missing NODE_ENV	Set environment variable
Secret not found	Wrong secret path	Verify secret manager config
Config validation	Invalid settings	Use Zod schema validation
Cross-env leak	Missing guards	Add environment checks

Examples

Quick Environment Check

const config = getMistralConfig();
console.log(`Running in ${config.environment}`);
console.log(`Model: ${config.defaultModel}`);
console.log(`Cache enabled: ${config.cache.enabled}`);

Vercel Environment Detection

function getVercelEnvironment(): Environment {
  const vercelEnv = process.env.VERCEL_ENV;

  if (vercelEnv === 'production') return 'production';
  if (vercelEnv === 'preview') return 'staging';
  return 'development';
}

Resources

• AWS Secrets Manager
• GCP Secret Manager
• 12-Factor App Config

Next Steps

For observability setup, see

mistral-observability

.