[chef] Not sure what to do for our workflow - cookbooks/roles/environments

[Autif Khan < >]

TL;DR - How do I/Can I add a recipe to a role in only one environment?

Long version:

We have been using chef strictly with just one role and one
environment (several cookbooks though). But of course we are now at a
place where we need to think about more environments and more roles.

We have machines of roles (say) R1, R2, R3, R4

We need to have environments (say) devA, devB, (probably one for each
dev, not sure) alpha, beta and prod

We have cook books (say) Common1, Common2, Common3 (few more),
R1SpecificCookBook, R2SpecificCookBook, R3SpecificCookBook,
R4SpecificCookBook

Of course only cookbooks have versions - lets say v0 and v1 for each cookbook.

So far so good.

Problem happens when devA adds a new recipe to (say) R1 - we can add
that recipe to R1SpecificCookBook v1 (still under development), but it
breaks when that recipe is nowhere to be found in devB, alpha, beta
and prod environments - as it is not in any of the v0 cookbooks.

Should we retro patch v0 cookbooks with NOOPs for these new recipes -
that does not sound right.

I have no idea how to handle our work flow - needless to say while I
have (once) contributed to chef [1], I am nowhere near a power user.
Need some advice. Please help

[1] http://tickets.opscode.com/browse/CHEF-3438

Thanks

Autif