Laravel Environment & Configuration Architecture

The Fatal Mistake: Calling env() Outside Config Files

Once php artisan config:cache runs in production, the .env file is no longer parsed, and all calls to env() outside config/*.php return null!

Always define configuration values in config/ and access them via config():

// config/services.php
'github' => [
    'token' => env('GITHUB_API_TOKEN'),
],

// In your application code:
$token = config('services.github.token');

Production Optimization

In production pipelines, always cache your route and configuration files:

php artisan config:cache
php artisan route:cache
php artisan view:cache