Using Environment variables (.env file) in Laravel.
Aug 01, 2025 am 05:42 AMIn the Laravel project, the .env file is used to manage environment variables, improving security and maintainability. To load .env files correctly, Laravel will automatically read by default, but in some server environments, the php artisan config:clear and php artisan config:cache commands need to be run to ensure that variables are cached correctly; configurations suitable for .env include database connections, API keys, application switches and third-party service configurations; when using it, you should note that the variable type is default to strings, avoid repeated definitions, preferentially use config() instead of env(), and support multi-environment configuration through .env.testing and other files, while avoiding submitting sensitive information to version control.
Using .env
files in Laravel projects to manage environment variables is a very common and recommended practice. It allows you to separate configuration information from your code, making it easier to switch flexibly in different environments, such as development, testing and production environments.

Here are some practical usage and precautions you may be concerned about:
How to correctly load .env
files
By default, Laravel will automatically read the .env
file in the project root directory and access these variables through env()
function or config()
method. But it should be noted that some server environments may not load the .env
file into PHP's $_ENV
. At this time, you need to manually run the following command to generate or update config/cache.php
file:

php artisan config:clear php artisan config:cache
This allows Laravel to cache the values in .env
into the configuration file, improving performance while ensuring that variables can be read correctly.
Which configurations are suitable for .env
Not all configurations are suitable for placement in .env
. Generally speaking, the following configurations are more suitable:

- Database connection information (such as DB_HOST, DB_DATABASE)
- API keys (such as MAILCHIMP_KEY, STRIPE_SECRET)
- Application behavior switches (such as APP_DEBUG, CACHE_DRIVER)
- Third-party service configuration (such as QUEUE_CONNECTION, REDIS_HOST)
Places that are not recommended to place sensitive information include: .env.example
or .env
files submitted to Git. These can easily lead to key leakage.
Tips and FAQs when using variables
Variable types should be handled with caution
The values in.env
files are all strings by default. For example:APP_DEBUG=true
It's actually the string
"true"
and not the boolean value. If you make strict judgments in the code, you may make an error.Do not repeatedly define variables
If you define the same variables in both.env
and.env.example
, Laravel will use the value of.env
first.Use
config()
instead ofenv()
directly
Try to useconfig('app.debug')
instead ofenv('APP_DEBUG')
in actual code. Because once you enable configuration cache,env()
cannot get the correct value.Multi-environment configuration can be implemented through extended files such as
.env.testing
For example, when you are running unit tests, Laravel will automatically load.env.testing
to avoid polluting the configuration of the development environment.
Basically that's it. Using the .env
file well can make your Laravel project safer and easier to maintain, but be careful not to write information that should not be exposed, especially remember to clean unnecessary debugging switches before going online.
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