For instance, if you are testing a payment gateway integration like Stripe, you need to use your personal developer API keys. Placing these keys in .env.development.local ensures you can test your code locally without accidentally pushing your private keys to GitHub, where they could be exposed. 2. Local Machine Machine-Specific Customization
Frameworks typically load environment files in a specific order of precedence. In most systems like .env.development.local highest priority for development environments: .env.development.local (Highest priority; local machine overrides) .env.local (Local overrides for all modes except .env.development (Shared development settings) (Default settings for all environments) Best Practices .env.development.local
# .env.production.local (Ignored) NODE_OPTIONS="--inspect" LOG_LEVEL="debug" For instance, if you are testing a payment