how to use environment variables for production?

Question

I am learning about environment variables. I need to use it in my code for production.

I know is not good practice to share your .env file when deploying your code because it contains sensitive information that you don't want to share with the public.

I do need to make my .env file visible because my code needs to use the api key to call the endpoints. Is the solution to deploy my code to a private repo so I can make my .env file visible?

Answer 1

It is not advisable to make your env file public because it usually contains API key or other private credentials. For a local repository creating a .env should be enough.

While deploying the application say over netlify, gh-pages, vercel or any other deployment platforms, you need to add the constants or variables defined in the env file as it is before deploying the application.