Grant Barnard

<p>EnvBeacon is a lightweight WordPress plugin designed for development teams managing multiple WordPress environments (local, staging, production). It displays a color-coded notice bar in the WordPress admin bar, making it instantly clear which environment you’re working on.</p>
<p><strong>Perfect for preventing:</strong><br />
– Accidentally modifying content on live sites<br />
– Publishing changes to staging instead of live<br />
– Confusion when switching between environments</p>
<h3>Features</h3>
<ul>
<li>🎨 Color-coded environment indicators (Red for Live, Blue for Staging, Green for Local)</li>
<li>⚙️ Easy-to-use settings page for URL pattern configuration</li>
<li>🔄 Automatic environment detection based on site URL</li>
<li>📋 Flexible URL patterns (simple strings, wildcards, regex alternation)</li>
<li>🏠 Built-in defaults for local, staging, and live environments</li>
<li>💾 Lightweight – no database overhead</li>
<li>🚀 Universal – works with any WordPress site</li>
</ul>
<h3>Quick Start</h3>
<p><strong>To set up the plugin:</strong></p>
<ol>
<li>In WordPress admin, go to Settings <span aria-hidden="true" class="wp-exclude-emoji">→</span> EnvBeacon</li>
<li>Enter your Live environment URL (e.g., <code>example.com</code>)</li>
<li>Staging patterns come pre-filled with common defaults: <code>stg|staging|stage|qa|dev-staging</code></li>
<li>Local patterns come pre-filled with common defaults: <code>localhost|127.0.0.1|.local|.test</code></li>
<li>Customize patterns and colors as needed</li>
<li>Click Save Changes</li>
</ol>
<p><strong>Default Patterns:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Staging</strong>: <code>stg|staging|stage|qa|dev-staging</code></li>
<li><strong>Local</strong>: <code>localhost|127.0.0.1|.local|.test</code></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Custom Pattern Examples:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><code>example.com</code> – Simple string match</li>
<li><code>*.example.com</code> – Wildcard (matches staging.example.com, qa.example.com, etc.)</li>
<li><code>staging|stage|qa</code> – Regex alternation (matches any of these words)</li>
</ul>
<h3>Usage</h3>
<p>Once activated and configured, the EnvBeacon will:</p>
<ol>
<li>Check your site’s URL on each page load</li>
<li>Match it against your configured patterns</li>
<li>Display a colored indicator in the WordPress admin bar</li>
<li>Show the environment name (Live, Staging, or Local)</li>
</ol>
<p>No further configuration needed!</p>
<h3>Support</h3>
<p>For support, questions, or feature requests, please visit the plugin support forum or check the documentation in the settings page.</p>
<p>The plugin includes detailed URL pattern syntax help in the settings page to guide you through configuration.</p>
<h3>License</h3>
<p>This plugin is licensed under the GPL v2 or later.</p>
<h3>Credits</h3>
<p>Built for development teams who need clear environment indication.</p>


EnvBeacon

Display a colored notice in the WordPress admin bar to indicate which environment (Live, Staging, Local) your site is running on.

Whodunit

Jb Audras

<p>This plugins provides custom admin bar colors to differentiate environments (staging, preprod, production). It’s really <strong>easy to use</strong> and <strong>developer-friendly</strong>.</p>
<p>The plugin provides a settings screen which several options:</p>
<ul>
<li>choose between several color predefined schemes.</li>
<li>use a favicon to better differentiate your environments in your browser’s tabs.</li>
<li>add a custom message in your admin bar, like “Production website”, “staging version” or whatever your want.</li>
<li>choose the user roles that will see the color scheme (other roles will see the default admin bar).</li>
</ul>
<p>It also offers few PHP constants you can use in your <code>wp-config.php</code> file (see Frequently Asked Questions below).</p>
<p>Since WordPress Core will probably deprecate alternate admin color schemes in mid-term, this plugin is meant to be use by those who rely on colors to know is they are in staging, preproduction or production environment.</p>
<p>Last but not least, all provided color schemes are accessibility-ready!</p>


Contextual Adminbar Color

OMG this is what I need.
I actually use the alternate colors, but I don't like to change the good "blacky" interface ;)
So, this is the best option ever.
And since the alt colors will disappear (soon?), it's a good idea to use this to prevent wrong wabsite updates and tons of wasted hours trying to figure "why this is not updating? HO CRAP I AM ON THE PRODUCTION SITE *phone rings* "hey, client… well listen… you won't believe me ha ha ha :|"

This is what I need

Perfect plugin that allows me to easily differentiate my various environments.

THX !

Great !!!

Really enjoy this plugin.
It’s simple and well integrated with WordPress admin UI.

I really like the optional configuration through wp-config.php.
After configuring it once in wp-config.php, I won’t ever need to reconfigure because it doesn’t loose settings on importing settings (eg. staging <-> production).

Great job @audrasjb!

Simple and very usefull!

Such a great helper! It gives me the safety to know exactly which environment I work on without having to worry. 
Sometimes things look just alike in your DEV, STAGE and PROD environment. And with this little plugin, it is immediately obvious which environment you work in.
And it also works on WP 5.6 - just checked...

Makes my life much better knowing exactly where I am

Use custom admin bar colors and favicons to differentiate your environments (staging/prod)

EnvBeacon vs Contextual Adminbar Color