That is a strong argument for using external tools to define the environment, and not installing any of the sort that’d read a .env file on any kind of deployed

That is a strong argument for using external tools to define the environment, and not installing any of the sort that’d read a .env file on any kind of deployed environment at all (just local dev machines) So another mark in the “why have this feature in the first place?” column. The whole concept is for dev ergonomics, but this one’s making that worse for security reasons? Ugh. Just leave it out entirely, then.