Do I need to use 'environment' with r10k?

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Hi,

We would like to start using r10k. The only problem is that we would have to change the use of environment in our code base.

Current situation

We use environment to distinguish between production/accreditation/stress_test environments. We roll out the master branch of our repo to the puppet master. We can only roll out one branch at any one time. Each environment is defined using the following files:

• environments/accreditation/manifests/site.pp
• environments/production/manifests/site.pp
• environments/stress_test/manifests/site.pp

Problem

We would like to use r10k so we can access multiple branches at the same time. The problem is that would need to change every occurrence of environment to use a different name e.g. int_environment. r10k maps branches 1:1 with environments. It would be better if we could use r10k and instead of it relying on environment, we could replace it with branch or some other term.

I'm aware that this probably seems like a strange question. I just dont see how we can use r10k without a major refactor of the code base and that means either: a. subverting that problem, or b. investing the effort to refactor. So worth me asking.