diff --git a/frontend/public/robots.txt b/frontend/public/robots.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index 1562495ce..000000000
--- a/frontend/public/robots.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,16 +0,0 @@
-User-agent: *
-Allow: /
-# Prevent crawling of Next.js build files.
-Disallow: /_next/
-Disallow: /_next*
-Disallow: /img/
-Disallow: /*.json$
-Disallow: /*_buildManifest.js$
-Disallow: /*_middlewareManifest.js$
-Disallow: /*_ssgManifest.js$
-Disallow: /*.js$
-# Prevent crawling of Next.js api routes.
-Disallow: /api/
-# Prevent crawling of static assets in the public folder.
-Disallow: /public/
-
diff --git a/frontend/src/app/robots.ts b/frontend/src/app/robots.ts
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..6d8157d6f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/frontend/src/app/robots.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+// initial rules were absorbed from static robots.txt file
+
+import type { MetadataRoute } from "next";
+import { environment } from "src/constants/environments";
+
+export const dynamic = "force-dynamic";
+
+export default function robots(): MetadataRoute.Robots {
+  return {
+    rules: [
+      environment.ENVIRONMENT === "dev" // switching this temporarily to ensure that the variable is being set at AWS runtime as expected, will make it "prod" after confirming in Dev
+        ? {
+            userAgent: "*",
+            allow: "/",
+            disallow: [
+              // don't disallow search for now as without a sitemap it's Google's only way of finding stuff
+              // search is a high cost, low information subset of the opportunity page data, which is also available via the Sitemap (soon)
+              // "/search",
+              // Prevent crawling of Next.js build files.
+              "/_next/",
+              "/_next*",
+              "/img/",
+              "/*.json$",
+              "/*_buildManifest.js$",
+              "/*_middlewareManifest.js$",
+              "/*_ssgManifest.js$",
+              "/*.js$",
+              // Prevent crawling of Next.js api routes.
+              "/api/",
+              // Prevent crawling of static assets in the public folder.
+              "/public/",
+            ],
+          }
+        : {
+            userAgent: "*",
+            disallow: "/",
+          },
+    ],
+    // our sitemap isn't ready yet
+    // sitemap: "https://acme.com/sitemap.xml",
+  };
+}
diff --git a/frontend/src/constants/environments.ts b/frontend/src/constants/environments.ts
index f86aefb98..4bd63598b 100644
--- a/frontend/src/constants/environments.ts
+++ b/frontend/src/constants/environments.ts
@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 const {
-  NODE_ENV,
   NEXT_PUBLIC_BASE_PATH,
   USE_SEARCH_MOCK_DATA = "",
   SENDY_API_URL,
@@ -11,14 +10,13 @@ const {
   FEATURE_SEARCH_OFF = "false",
   FEATURE_OPPORTUNITY_OFF = "false",
   NEXT_BUILD = "false",
+  ENVIRONMENT = "dev",
 } = process.env;
 
 // home for all interpreted server side environment variables
 export const environment: { [key: string]: string } = {
   LEGACY_HOST:
-    NODE_ENV === "production"
-      ? "https://grants.gov"
-      : "https://test.grants.gov",
+    ENVIRONMENT === "prod" ? "https://grants.gov" : "https://test.grants.gov",
   NEXT_PUBLIC_BASE_PATH: NEXT_PUBLIC_BASE_PATH ?? "",
   USE_SEARCH_MOCK_DATA,
   SENDY_API_URL: SENDY_API_URL || "",
@@ -31,4 +29,5 @@ export const environment: { [key: string]: string } = {
   FEATURE_OPPORTUNITY_OFF,
   FEATURE_SEARCH_OFF,
   NEXT_BUILD,
+  ENVIRONMENT,
 };
diff --git a/infra/frontend/app-config/env-config/environment-variables.tf b/infra/frontend/app-config/env-config/environment-variables.tf
index db0bfa482..bb08013ea 100644
--- a/infra/frontend/app-config/env-config/environment-variables.tf
+++ b/infra/frontend/app-config/env-config/environment-variables.tf
@@ -7,6 +7,8 @@ locals {
     NEW_RELIC_ENABLED = "true"
     # see https://github.com/newrelic/node-newrelic?tab=readme-ov-file#setup
     NODE_OPTIONS = "-r newrelic"
+    # expose the current AWS Env to the FE Next Node Server at Runtime
+    ENVIRONMENT = var.environment
   }
 
   # Configuration for secrets