Dotenv Memes

Family gathering downstairs? Nah. Turkey dinner? Pass. Opening presents? Maybe later. But committing your AWS credentials and database passwords to a public repo in a blurry .env file while sitting alone with your laptop? Now that's the holiday spirit. Nothing says "Merry Christmas" quite like exposing your entire infrastructure to the internet. The tree is decorated, the lights are twinkling, and your BETTER_AUTH_SECRET is about to become everyone's secret. At least the photo is blurry enough that we can only read like 80% of those credentials. Security through jpeg compression—a strategy as old as time. Pro tip: Next year, maybe add .env to your .gitignore before you add it to your Christmas card.

Ah, the classic revenge of the unpaid intern! When your company thinks exposure is a valid form of payment, but you're leaving with something far more valuable—their API key. Nothing says "thanks for the experience" quite like committing sensitive credentials to a public repository on your way out. It's the digital equivalent of taking the office stapler, except this one could cost them thousands in unauthorized AWS charges. Remember kids: proper credential management isn't just good practice, it's also why you should probably pay your developers.

Ah, the classic parting gift from an unpaid intern - committing the API key directly to the .env file in their final act of corporate sabotage. Nothing says "thanks for the experience" like leaving a production credential in the version control history. Future security auditors will speak of this moment with reverence.

Having a single .env file? Reasonable. Having nine different environment files with conflicting naming conventions? That's just asking for a 3 AM production outage when you can't remember if the database password is in .env.production , .env.production.local , or that random file you created six months ago after three energy drinks. The real security feature is that even you can't find your own secrets anymore.