Harness CDE Deployment Models
Harness Cloud Development Environments (CDE), also known as Harness Gitspaces, are on-demand, remote development environments that come pre-configured with everything you need for instant coding. Gitspaces are fully managed by Harness but offer different deployment options.
Refer to our quickstart tutorial for a detailed, step-by-step guide to getting started with Gitspaces.
Deployment Models
There are two deployment models for Harness Gitspaces:
Harness-Hosted Model
Harness-Hosted Gitspaces are on-demand, remote development environments that can be launched instantly with a single click hosted and managed by Harness.
With this deployment model:
- Harness-Hosted Gitspaces are fully managed and operated by Harness, requiring no maintenance on your part.
- All Gitspaces in this model run entirely within the Harness Cloud (Harness-managed infrastructure).
- No infrastructure setup is needed, you can create and launch a Gitspace in just a few minutes, without any configuration.
Getting Started with Harness-Hosted Gitspaces
You can start using Harness-Hosted Gitspaces in either of the following ways:
- Create Harness-Hosted Gitspaces: Launch directly from your Harness UI with no prerequisites. Refer to Creating Harness Hosted Gitspaces for details.
- Use Secure Connect with Harness-Hosted Gitspaces: Use your privately-owned, on-prem assets (like private Docker and artifact registries) with your Gitspaces using the Secure Connect feature. See Using Secure Connect for more information.
Self-Hosted Model
Self Hosted Gitspaces are currently available behind the Feature Flag CDE_HYBRID_ENABLED. Contact Harness Support to enable this feature flag.
Self-Hosted Gitspaces are on-demand, remote development environments hosted within your organization’s infrastructure.
With this deployment model:
- Self-Hosted Gitspaces run on your organization’s infrastructure, managed by the Harness Control Plane.
- They are pre-configured for instant coding and provide an added layer of security by offering full control over infrastructure and data.
- They reduce the risk of external data exposure and prevent source code from being cached or accessed by third-party cloud services.
For more details, see Overview & Key Concepts.
Getting Started with Self-Hosted Gitspaces
To start using Self-Hosted Gitspaces, you must complete the prerequisites and configure your infrastructure within Harness to host your Gitspaces. Refer to Configuring Self-Hosted Gitspaces for instructions.
Self-Hosted vs. Harness-Hosted
Harness-Hosted Gitspaces are fully managed by Harness, simplifying setup and management for end-users. However, as organizations scale and adopt stricter security and compliance standards, Harness-Hosted Gitspaces may present certain enterprise challenges:
- Security & Data Sovereignty: Limited control over source code and developer data.
- Customization Limitations: Hosted solutions may not support deep customization of tooling and environment setups.
- Latency Issues: Fixed hosted regions may cause performance problems for globally distributed teams.
By contrast, Self-Hosted Gitspaces address these concerns by offering full infrastructure control.
| Use Case | Self-Hosted Gitspaces | Harness-Hosted Gitspaces |
|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure | Managed by customer | Managed by Harness |
| Security & Compliance | Full control by customer | Shared responsibility model |
| Source Code | Stored within customer infrastructure | Stored and cached in Harness |
| Data Residency | Customer-defined and governed | Stored in Harness Cloud |
| Latency/Location | Global flexibility (customer-managed) | Limited to predefined regions |