Why Use Environment Variables?

Environment variables store sensitive information (e.g., secret keys, database credentials) securely outside your codebase.

Using .env Files

1. Install python-decouple:

   pip install python-decouple
   

2. Create a .env file:
   SECRET_KEY=your-secret-key
DEBUG=False
DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:password@localhost/dbname


    

3. Update settings.py to use the .env file:

   from decouple import config
   
   SECRET_KEY = config('SECRET_KEY')
   DEBUG = config('DEBUG', cast=bool)
   DATABASES = {
       'default': config('DATABASE_URL', cast=db_url)
   }