Three layers
- Versioned defaults provide safe baseline behavior.
- The appliance environment holds host-specific settings and secrets.
- The authenticated settings API stores administrator-managed configuration.
Precedence
Real process environment values override the .env file, which overrides versioned defaults. Do not commit a populated .env.
Health gate
Run tester doctor after browser, Appium, model or environment changes. Treat every failure and warning as an unresolved deployment condition.