env-management

env-management

Patterns for managing environment variables across Python/FastAPI backends and TypeScript/Next.js or Vite frontends. Synthesized from lead-gen-engine (python-dotenv + manual validation) and seo-geo-aeo-engine (Pydantic BaseSettings + LRU cache).

1) Python: Pydantic BaseSettings (preferred — seo-geo-aeo pattern)

# core/config.py
from functools import lru_cache
from pydantic_settings import BaseSettings, SettingsConfigDict

class Settings(BaseSettings):
    model_config = SettingsConfigDict(
        env_file=".env",
        env_file_encoding="utf-8",
        case_sensitive=False,
        extra="ignore",
    )

    # Database
    database_url: str
    postgres_user: str = "app"
    postgres_password: str = ""

    # Redis
    redis_url: str = "redis://localhost:6379/0"
    redis_password: str = ""

    # LLM providers — all optional (feature-flagged)
    openai_api_key: str = ""
    anthropic_api_key: str = ""
    moonshot_api_key: str = ""
    gemini_api_key: str = ""

    # Generic OpenAI-compatible provider (overrides specific providers when set)
    use_generic_llm: bool = False
    generic_llm_base_url: str = ""
    generic_llm_api_key: str = ""
    generic_llm_model: str = "gpt-4o"

    # External APIs
    serp_api_key: str = ""
    firecrawl_api_key: str = ""

    # App
    environment: str = "development"
    log_level: str = "INFO"
    debug: bool = False

    # Auth
    jwt_secret: str = "change-me-in-production"
    dashboard_username: str = "admin"
    dashboard_password: str = ""

    @property
    def is_production(self) -> bool:
        return self.environment == "production"

@lru_cache
def get_settings() -> Settings:
    return Settings()

Usage everywhere:

from core.config import get_settings

def my_func():
    s = get_settings()
    # s.database_url, s.openai_api_key, etc.

2) Python: python-dotenv + Manual Validation (lead-gen pattern)

# shared/cli.py
from pathlib import Path
from dotenv import load_dotenv

def get_project_root() -> Path:
    return Path(__file__).parent.parent

def load_env() -> None:
    env_path = get_project_root() / ".env"
    if env_path.exists():
        load_dotenv(env_path)