Configuring environment variables

Every Muerte Cloud service reads its configuration from environment variables — database URLs, API keys, feature flags, ports. Values are injected into both the build and the runtime process, with sensitive values encrypted at rest and never printed to logs.

Adding environment variables#

Open the service's Environment tab and add entries one by one, or paste a .env file and Muerte Cloud will parse it:

DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:pass@host:5432/app
REDIS_URL=redis://cache.internal:6379
STRIPE_SECRET_KEY=sk_live_...
LOG_LEVEL=info

Names are case-sensitive and must match [A-Z_][A-Z0-9_]*. Values can contain any UTF-8; wrap them in quotes if they include spaces or shell metacharacters.

Generated values

Muerte Cloud can generate a strong random value for any variable — useful for session secrets, JWT keys and webhook signing secrets. The value is created once, stored encrypted and never shown again after the first reveal.

Environment groups#

An environment group is a named bundle of variables that you link to one or more services. Update the group once and every linked service redeploys with the new values — no copy-pasting between staging and production.

Resolution order

When a service starts, variables are resolved in this order — later entries override earlier ones:

1. 1
   Platform-provided

   Built-in variables injected by Muerte Cloud (see below).
2. 2
   Linked environment groups

   Merged top-down in the order they're attached to the service.
3. 3
   Service-level variables

   Values set on the service itself. Always win over any group.

Platform-provided variables#

Muerte Cloud injects a small set of read-only variables into every deploy. You can reference them from your app but not overwrite them.

Build-time vs runtime#

Environment variables are available in both stages, but the two stages run in separate sandboxes:

Reading values in your code#

Standard language APIs work unchanged:

const dbUrl = process.env.DATABASE_URL;
const port = Number(process.env.PORT ?? 8080);

import os
db_url = os.environ["DATABASE_URL"]
port = int(os.getenv("PORT", "8080"))

dbURL := os.Getenv("DATABASE_URL")
port := cmp.Or(os.Getenv("PORT"), "8080")

Best practices#