Dumb question. When, say, setting up a new server, you need to set up the environment variables to have your production credentials. How do I automate this pr

Dumb question. When, say, setting up a new server, you need to set up the environment variables to have your production credentials. How do I automate this process if the variables aren't stored in a central repo? Keeping a static file on my computer could maybe cut it, but won't help me get new team members able to deploy, unless I email them that file or something. Is having a file stored in email or dropbox or something really way better than having it stored in a private git repo? I assume there's a clever way to do this that I'm missing?