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Guides

13 guides

Long-form walkthroughs for getting the most out of Dotvault.

Getting started with Dotvault
Install Dotvault, add your first project, and learn your way around the editor.
Licensing
How Dotvault's trial, purchase, and license activation work.
Snapshots and history
Browse, compare, and restore previous versions of any env file with Dotvault's automatic encrypted snapshots.
Syncing env files across environments
Keep dev, staging, production, and .env.example in sync without leaking secrets between them, and keep the example file honest past week two.
Working with git
How Dotvault reads git status, stages env files, and keeps you from accidentally committing secrets.
Working with encrypted env files
What Laravel's encrypted env files are, whether you want them, and how to unlock, edit, rotate, and share them without ever touching artisan.
Filesystem sync and missing files
How Dotvault stays in sync with your project directory when files are created, renamed, or deleted outside the app.
Telemetry events — full reference
Every event Dotvault can send when anonymous usage telemetry is enabled, with every closed-enum value spelt out.
Should you commit .env to git?
Why a .env file does not belong in version control, what to commit instead, and what to do when it has already been committed.
.env vs .env.local, and which one belongs in git
What each framework actually does with .env and .env.local, the load order per stack, and which of those files are safe to commit.
How to find missing environment variables
How to work out which environment variables a project needs, which ones are genuinely absent, and which absences do not matter.
Managing multiple .env files in Next.js
How Next.js loads .env, .env.local and the NODE_ENV variants, what NEXT_PUBLIC_ really does, and how to keep local, preview, staging and production apart.
Common .env security mistakes
The mistakes that actually leak credentials from env files, roughly in order of how often they happen, and what to do about each one.

Frequently Asked Questions

69 questions

Short answers to common questions.

Before you buy

7

Getting Started

5

Editor

8

Snapshots & History

4

Environment Types

2

Creating & Deleting Files

3

Git Integration

6

Env Sync

3

Frameworks & Packages

4

Privacy & Telemetry

3

Updates

2

Encrypted Files

9

Editor Features

13