Your .env File Is Lying to You
This video breaks down env vars from the operating system level up — where they live, how they move between processes, and why your app works locally but breaks in Docker.
Environment variables aren't a framework feature — they're an OS primitive. Every process on your machine carries its own flat list of key-value strings. We'll walk through the four layers where env vars get set (OS defaults, shell profiles, manual commands, and application tooling like dotenv). Then we get into process inheritance — the reason Docker containers and CI steps don't see your local variables. Finally, we tackle the build-time vs runtime distinction.
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:44 What Environment Variables Actually Are
1:33 Where Do They Come From?
3:39 Process Inheritance
5:09 Build-Time vs Runtime
8:30 Recap
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