Environment Configuration Skill

Manage environment variables securely across development, staging, and production environments.

Core Principles

1. Never commit secrets - .env files with real values must be in .gitignore
2. Document all variables - .env.example shows required variables with placeholder values
3. Validate at startup - Fail fast if required variables are missing
4. Type coercion - Parse strings to appropriate types (numbers, booleans)
5. Environment-specific - Support different configs for dev/staging/prod

File Structure

project/
├── .env                    # Local overrides (gitignored)
├── .env.example            # Template with placeholders (committed)
├── .env.development        # Development defaults (optional, committed)