[p10_user]

What is a more proper way to do it? And I'm assuming you aren't talking about an environment file that is part of the codebase - unless your point is that it is very easy to accidentally add the env file to the codebase - then I get your point.

[michael1999]

That's exactly what lots of early web frameworks did. One big yaml/ini file with every credential for every environment, and a single "environment" selection when launching the app. A truly huge footgun.

In their defence, it wasn't as bad back then. They were created by/for small teams/sole practitioners with no separation of responsibility. Source control would be on-prem (or just local directory backups). The Java EE model with explicit separation between development and deployment as separate activities was a disliked, or not understood.