Environments

Environment loading is implemented in backend/src/environments.ts.

Runtime modes

• development: loads dotenv files in a strict order.
• production: does not load dotenv files; expects platform-managed env vars.

This project does not use a single local file. Local development can resolve from four files, in precedence order: .env, .env.development, .env.local, .env.development.local.

Development file precedence

When NODE_ENV resolves to development, files are read in this order:

1. .env
2. .env.development
3. .env.local
4. .env.development.local

Existing process variables are not overwritten.

Key environment variables

• PORT
• DATABASE_URL
• JWT_SECRET
• JWT_EXPIRES_IN
• BCRYPT_SALT_ROUNDS
• GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID
• OPENAI_API_KEY (or compatibility alias OPEN_AI_API_KEY)
• RATE_LIMIT_WINDOW_MS, RATE_LIMIT_MAX_GLOBAL, RATE_LIMIT_MAX_AUTH, RATE_LIMIT_MAX_API

Test bootstrap defaults

backend/src/setup-env.ts sets safe defaults for tests, including local test DB URL and fallback JWT secret.