Managing Configuration

When to use

• Adding new environment variables
• Debugging config-related crashes
• Onboarding a new environment
• Removing scattered process.env access

Core rules

1. Read process.env exactly once at boot
2. Validate with Zod (preferred) or class-validator
3. Export typed AppConfig object for the rest of the code
4. No process.env outside the config module
5. Secrets never logged or returned in responses

Reference shape (TypeScript)