.env.production: a practical guide to production environment variables

What is a .env.production file?

What it is and how it's used

A .env.production file is a plain text file that defines environment variables for a production deployment. It’s loaded by your application at startup to configure behavior without hard-coding values.

How it differs from development and test env files

Production files typically contain different values and stricter protections. They focus on real services, domains, keys, and URLs, and are often kept separate from development configs.

Why it matters for deployments

Security and secrecy

Production env files commonly include sensitive data (API keys, tokens, database credentials). Treat them as confidential and protect access.

Consistency across environments

Having a dedicated production file helps ensure the app runs with the correct variables in production versus staging or development.

Best practices for .env.production

Keep secrets out of version control

Do not commit .env.production to public or shared repos. Use secret management or encrypted storage where possible.

Use environment-specific overrides

Allow a base config with overrides per environment so you can adjust only what’s necessary for production.

Use a single source of truth and tooling

Centralize management via your deployment tooling, CI/CD, or a secret manager to reduce drift.

Common pitfalls to avoid

Committing secrets

Even accidentally including keys in version control is risky.

Hard-coding values

Avoid embedding values that differ between environments in code.

Inconsistent environments

Incoherent production variables between deploys can cause bugs that are hard to trace.

How to manage safely in your workflow

Using secret management tools

Leverage services that encrypt and rotate credentials rather than storing them in plain text.

CI/CD integration

Inject production variables during deployment, not in code, and audit changes.

Auditing and rotation

Regularly review who has access and rotate credentials on a schedule.

Next steps

Quick checklist

• Identify all production-sensitive variables
• Ensure they’re not in source control
• Configure a secret management or CI/CD injection workflow

Further reading

If you have no sources, consult your framework's docs on environment configuration and secret management.