Environments

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

Runtime modes

• development: load environment variables from .env.development.
• production: do not use local dotenv files; use platform-managed environment variables only.

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.