What is Environment variables?
Also called: Env vars, .env
The short answer
Environment variables are settings and secrets, such as API keys and database URLs, supplied to an app by its environment instead of written into the code.
Environment variables, explained
They keep secrets out of the repository and let the same code run with different settings in development and production. Never commit .env files.
Questions people ask about Environment variables
What is Environment variables?
Environment variables are settings and secrets, such as API keys and database URLs, supplied to an app by its environment instead of written into the code.
Related terms
An API is a defined way for one piece of software to ask another for data or actions, such as a site asking a payment service to charge a card.
ProductionProduction is the live version of a website that real visitors use, as opposed to development and staging copies.
Website securityWebsite security is protecting a site, its data and its visitors from attacks, through HTTPS, updated software, careful input handling, strong logins and backups.
DeployTo deploy is to publish a new version of a website to its host so visitors see it; modern hosts deploy automatically when code is pushed to Git.
Part of the Web Encyclopedia by Apex Flow Digital. Definitions are general knowledge, kept current, with no invented statistics.