environment-config-specialist

What problem does it solve?

Environment configuration is a frequent source of runtime failures, insecure secret handling, and build-time vs runtime confusion. This Skill provides a structured approach to listing, categorizing, documenting, validating, and securely storing configuration values so applications run reliably across local, staging, and production environments.

Core Features & Use Cases

• Inventory & Categorization: Identify all required variables (secrets, URLs, feature flags, build settings) and classify build-time versus runtime needs.
• Local and Template Files: Create .env.local for local secrets, provide a committed .env.example template, and ensure .env*.local patterns are ignored by git.
• Framework & Platform Guidance: Apply correct client-side prefixes for Vite or Next.js, load env files by NODE_ENV, and configure environment variables in Vercel, Netlify, Render, Cloud Run, or similar.
• Validation & Safety: Implement runtime validation using zod, envalid, or similar libraries, enforce startup checks for required variables, and adopt managed secret storage and rotation in production.

Quick Start

Generate a .env.example template, add local secrets to .env.local (gitignored), and validate required variables at app startup with a schema validator.