Is Deep Linking in Android 12 only possible on production environment?

Question

There are actually 2 parts to this question

Starting Android 12 Deep linking has changed quite a bit.

1. Domain verification
2. User approval for default links to open the app

My first question is are both of these needed to be implemented for the deep link to work?

secondly, while reading the documents I came across this particular note which says the following

Do not publish your app with dev/test URLs in the manifest file that may not be accessible to the public (such as any that are accessible only with a VPN). A workaround in such cases is to configure build variants to generate a different manifest file for dev builds.

Does this mean staging environments with restricted access cannot be used for testing?

Note:

1. I have verified my digital link assets using Confirm the Digital Asset Links files and it works
2. My manifest looks like this

  <activity
          android:name=".view.activity.MemberProfileActivity"
          android:screenOrientation="portrait"
          android:noHistory="true"
          android:windowSoftInputMode="adjustResize|stateHidden">
          <intent-filter android:autoVerify="true">
              <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
              <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
              <category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />

              <data android:scheme="http" />
              <data android:scheme="https" />
              <data
                  android:host="@string/base_domain"
                  android:pathPrefix="/member_profile/" />
          </intent-filter>
      </activity>

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Savadove