from dotenv import dotenv_values import os

Use this for local configuration only. Use orchestration tools (Kubernetes secrets, AWS Secrets Manager) for production.

. You can create a local environment for your project using: python -m venv .venv source .venv/bin/activate (Mac/Linux) or .venv\Scripts\activate python-dotenv within this isolated space to handle your .env.python.local sample .gitignore configuration to ensure your local environment files stay private?

DB_HOST=localhost DB_PORT=5432 DB_USERNAME=myuser DB_PASSWORD=mypassword

If you change a value in your .env.python.local file but Python still reads the old value, you might need to restart your terminal, virtual environment, or IDE. Some development servers cache environment variables upon boot. Standard .env values are overwriting local values