Dynamic Config Management

Dynamic Config Management

Centralize and validate configuration at startup. Reduces "works on my machine" and silent misconfiguration in deployed environments.

When to use

• New service or deploy target
• Mystery bugs from missing/wrong env vars
• Standardizing config across dev/staging/prod

When not to use

• Secrets rotation policy (use team secret manager docs)
• Feature flag product logic (may overlap with feature-flag systems)

Workflow

1. Inventory — list all config keys, required vs optional, defaults
2. Schema — validate types and allowed values (Zod, pydantic, envconfig, etc.)
3. .env.example — committed template with placeholders, no real secrets
4. Fail fast — app refuses to start if required keys missing or invalid
5. Document — README section: key, purpose, example placeholder

Checklist

• No secrets in repo or logs
• Placeholder detection (changeme, TODO, empty required vars)
• Different files or prefixes per environment documented
• CI loads test config explicitly (not developer .env)
• Config dump endpoint disabled in production

Anti-patterns

• Reading os.environ scattered across codebase
• Defaulting production credentials to dev values
• Silent fallbacks that hide misconfiguration

Output

• Config schema module
• Updated .env.example
• Startup validation with actionable error messages