--- title: Doing much better than your .env file | daily.dev description: Tony: I argue again for why we should reduce the practice of storing all environment variables in a.env file and move to a more sophisticated approach for... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/doing-much-better-than-your-env-file-hu3hba0iz twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Doing much better than your .env file | daily.dev og:description: Tony: I argue again for why we should reduce the practice of storing all environment variables in a.env file and move to a more sophisticated approach for... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/doing-much-better-than-your-env-file-hu3hba0iz og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/HU3hBa0IZ.png og:image:alt: Doing much better than your .env file og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Doing much better than your .env file **[Medium](https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js)** · 9 min read · 269 upvotes · 34 comments ## Summary Tony: I argue again for why we should reduce the practice of storing all environment variables in a.env file and move to a more sophisticated approach for managing them in local development. He says this article is intended for software development teams and not security and devops teams that already have this figured out. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@nurobit** · 5 upvotes > Infisical looks cool, but $14/mo per user is pretty steep. **@prabhsharan36** · 4 upvotes > Still I would say .env file is better than these secret management tools. It costs you more. You can create .env.example file for sharing keys having dummy values with other developers. > They have created this tool but no developer is using it because in reality this solution is looking for problem which is not there. **@rahulx** · 2 upvotes > Where do we store the Infisical token? **@kaligrapy247** · 2 upvotes > I think it is more beneficial for teams and Organisations than it is for Solo Devs **@lunareclipse** · 1 upvotes > Interesting ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Don’t just attend KubeCon \+ CloudNativeCon, Merge Forward your experience\!](https://daily.dev/posts/don-t-just-attend-kubecon-cloudnativecon-merge-forward-your-experience--l0rpp73x8) · CNCF · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Announcing H2 2026 KCDs](https://daily.dev/posts/announcing-h2-2026-kcds-m96goajm1) · CNCF · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Two months of Open Community Groups](https://daily.dev/posts/two-months-of-open-community-groups-asf52zhbs) · CNCF · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [CNCF Unveils Schedule for KubeCon \+ CloudNativeCon Europe 2026](https://daily.dev/posts/cncf-unveils-schedule-for-kubecon-cloudnativecon-europe-2026-ikhcoa5cb) · CNCF · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [CNCF Debuts KubeCon \+ CloudNativeCon Japan 2026 Schedule](https://daily.dev/posts/cncf-debuts-kubecon-cloudnativecon-japan-2026-schedule-xp5pyudub) · CNCF · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#security](https://daily.dev/tags/security), [#tools](https://daily.dev/tags/tools), [#infrastructure](https://daily.dev/tags/infrastructure) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/doing-much-better-than-your-env-file-hu3hba0iz) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Doing much better than your .env file","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/doing-much-better-than-your-env-file-hu3hba0iz","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/doing-much-better-than-your-env-file-hu3hba0iz"},"datePublished":"2023-05-10T13:30:44.137Z","dateModified":"2023-07-20T14:10:56.027Z","description":"Tony: I argue again for why we should reduce the practice of storing all environment variables in a.env file and move to a more sophisticated approach for...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/96538d651dccf521de0504c899986b59","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/96538d651dccf521de0504c899986b59","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Medium","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Medium","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/medium","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js"},"commentCount":34,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/doing-much-better-than-your-env-file-hu3hba0iz","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":269},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":34}],"keywords":"security,tools,infrastructure","timeRequired":"PT9M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Medium","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Doing much better than your .env file"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/doing-much-better-than-your-env-file-hu3hba0iz","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"Infisical looks cool, but $14/mo per user is pretty steep.","datePublished":"2023-05-10T17:28:23.899Z","dateModified":"2023-05-10T17:28:50.359Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/HU3hBa0IZ#c-hPazguj3K","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Nathan Bennett","url":"https://daily.dev/nurobit","image":"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a/AGNmyxbaJ8x3_VHaWC03tI4_mp4bU4dHhIOgEVCkfJx9Cw=s96-c"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":5}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Still I would say .env file is better than these secret management tools. It costs you more. You can create .env.example file for sharing keys having dummy values with other developers.\nThey have created this tool but no developer is using it because in reality this solution is looking for problem which is not there.","datePublished":"2023-05-11T16:56:44.598Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/HU3hBa0IZ#c-ozHroCtdU","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Prabhsharan Singh","url":"https://daily.dev/prabhsharan36","image":"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a-/AOh14GgIPyNwm0D8BfoCAwPV0nVmIl6xGZzk_Q-NDaCUQ7w=s100"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":4}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Where do we store the Infisical token?","datePublished":"2023-05-11T16:54:54.997Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/HU3hBa0IZ#c-OunB6n9sA","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Rahul Baruah","url":"https://daily.dev/rahulx","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--1Ax48Dn1--/f_auto/v1769538786/avatars/avatar_AIqGl8f5idSOeTy47Tk1f?_a=BAMAMiiu0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"I think it is more beneficial for teams and Organisations than it is for Solo Devs","datePublished":"2023-05-12T01:41:25.124Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/HU3hBa0IZ#c-5YZpZKAnd","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"James the Elder","url":"https://daily.dev/kaligrapy247","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/42041008?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Interesting","datePublished":"2023-05-18T10:40:01.155Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/HU3hBa0IZ#c-XHphKoJso","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Lunar Eclipse","url":"https://daily.dev/lunareclipse","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/v1684415199/avatars/avatar_bd6yucmurwMOTHGRppbIs.jpg"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}}]} ```