mindboost-infrastructure/env

🔧 Environment Configuration Guide

🌍 Overview

This project uses environment variables to manage configuration across different environments (development, staging, production, etc.). These variables are loaded from .env files and can be overridden at multiple levels.

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📌 Environment Variable Priority (Lowest to Highest)

🔢 Priority	📄 Source	🔍 Description
1️⃣ Fallback Values	hardcoded defaults	Used only if no other configuration is provided
2️⃣ Global Defaults	.env.all	Shared settings for all services
3️⃣ Service-Specific Overrides	.env.backend, .env.proxy, etc.	Overrides .env.all with service-specific values
4️⃣ Shell Environment Variables	export VAR=value before running	Takes precedence over .env files
5️⃣ CLI Overrides	docker compose --env-file or -e VAR=value	Highest priority (for temporary overrides)

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🔄 Overwriting Behavior

• 🏗 Variables defined in .env.all override fallback values.
• 🏗 Variables defined in .env.<service> (e.g., .env.backend) override .env.all.
• 🔧 Manually exported environment variables in the shell take priority over .env files.
• 🚀 Variables passed via CLI (--env-file or -e VAR=value) override everything.

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🚀 Best Practices

✔️ Use .env.all for global configurations (e.g., ENVIRONMENT=development, INFRASTRUCTURE_LABEL=myinfra).
✔️ Use .env.<service> for service-specific configurations (e.g., .env.backend for Laravel, .env.database for MariaDB).
✔️ If needed, manually override variables in the shell using export VAR=value.
✔️ Use CLI --env-file for temporary overrides in testing/debugging scenarios.

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🏗 Example File Structure

/env/
  ├── .env.all                  # Global default variables
  ├── development/
  │   ├── .env.backend          # Backend service config for development
  │   ├── .env.database         # Database config for development
  │   ├── .env.proxy            # Proxy config for development
  ├── staging/
  │   ├── .env.backend          # Backend service config for staging
  │   ├── .env.database         # Database config for staging
  ├── production/
  │   ├── .env.backend          # Backend service config for production
  │   ├── .env.database         # Database config for production