.env.laravel · Editor's Choice

On production servers:

chown www-data:www-data .env
chmod 640 .env

This allows the web server to read but prevents other system users from viewing it.

Let’s walk through a real-world scenario where .env.laravel improves clarity and security.

Scenario: Your team maintains a monorepo with a Laravel API and a Next.js frontend. You want to avoid confusion between .env for Next.js and .env for Laravel. .env.laravel

Solution:

Result: The Laravel app now ignores the generic .env (if present) and explicitly uses .env.laravel. No more accidental variable collisions.

Laravel, like many modern PHP frameworks, follows the "Twelve-Factor App" methodology, which states that configuration should be stored in environment variables. The .env file (short for "environment") is a plain-text file placed in the root of your Laravel project. It contains key-value pairs that override the default configuration values defined in the config/ directory. On production servers: chown www-data:www-data

A typical Laravel .env file looks like this:

APP_NAME="My Laravel App"
APP_ENV=local
APP_KEY=base64:YOUR_GENERATED_KEY_HERE
APP_DEBUG=true
APP_URL=http://localhost
LOG_CHANNEL=stack
DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=homestead
DB_USERNAME=homestead
DB_PASSWORD=secret This allows the web server to read but
BROADCAST_DRIVER=log
CACHE_DRIVER=file
QUEUE_CONNECTION=sync
SESSION_DRIVER=file

When Laravel boots up, the Dotenv library (by Vance Lucas) loads these variables into $_ENV and $_SERVER, and the env() helper function retrieves them. The config/ files then use env() to set framework-specific settings.

The canonical filename is .env. So why does the long-tail keyword .env.laravel exist? There are three common scenarios:

Regardless of your intent, understanding how to leverage environment files specifically for Laravel will save you from configuration nightmares.