Great question — totally common need. Assuming Prefect 3.x, here are a few reliable ways to make schedules environment-specific. Pick the one that best matches how you deploy today. Option A: Programmatic deploy with an env-driven schedule (simple and explicit) - Drive the schedule from an environment variable and pass it to

deploy()

.

import os
from prefect import schedules

ENV = os.getenv("ENVIRONMENT", "dev")

schedule = None
if ENV == "prod":
    schedule = schedules.Cron("0 7 * * *", timezone="America/Denver")

(
    # If you’re deploying from source (recommended)
    flow.from_source(
        source="<https://github.com/your-org/your-repo>",
        entrypoint="path/to/flow.py:my_flow",
    )
    .deploy(
        name=f"my-flow-{ENV}",
        work_pool_name="my-pool",
        schedule=schedule,  # None for dev/stage, cron for prod
    )
)

Option B: Keep YAML schedule-free and add the schedule only in prod via CLI - Define the deployment without a

schedule:

in your

prefect.yaml

. - In prod CI, add the schedule after deployment:

# Deploy (no schedule defined in YAML)
prefect deploy

# In prod only, attach a cron schedule
prefect deployment schedule create "my-flow/my-deployment" \
  --cron "0 7 * * *" \
  --timezone "America/Denver"

You can also pause/resume later:

prefect deployment schedule pause "my-flow/my-deployment"
prefect deployment schedule resume "my-flow/my-deployment"

Option C: Separate deployment definitions per environment - Maintain separate deployment entries (e.g.,

my-deployment-dev

,

my-deployment-prod

) and only put the

schedule:

on the prod one. - In CI, select which to deploy by name pattern:

prefect deploy --name "*prod*"
# or
prefect deploy --name "*dev*"

Notes - “No schedule” just means omit the

schedule:

block (or set it to null). You can still trigger ad-hoc runs via the UI/CLI. - If you already have a YAML snippet like:

schedule:
    cron: "0 7 * * *"
    timezone: "America/Denver"

simply remove that block for non-prod, and use Option B to attach the schedule only in prod. Quick question to tailor the guidance: are you deploying with

prefect deploy

from a

prefect.yaml

project, or programmatically (Python calling

.deploy()

)? If you share that, I can provide a drop-in example for your exact setup.