Named environment profiles for each server. Switch from dev to staging to production in one click. ~1 second hot-reload. Tunnels stay alive.
You're developing against a local database, but you need to test against the staging API for five minutes. Normally: stop the server, edit .env, change DATABASE_URL and API_BASE_URL, restart the server, test, then reverse everything. If you forget to switch back, you're writing to staging data for an hour.
Donk gives every server named environment profiles. dev, staging, production — or whatever names make sense. Each profile has its own set of environment variables. Switch with one click. The server restarts in about a second — hot-reload preserves tunnels, file watchers, and worker processes.
donk env switch my-api stagingdonk.toml — commit profiles without secretsVideo: 25–35 seconds. Switching from dev to staging profile, server restarting in ~1 second, different env vars active.