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How do you add environment variables to a Next.js project? What is the difference between a regular environment variable and one prefixed with NEXT_PUBLIC in Next.js? How do you manage different environment variable values for development, staging, and production environments? How would you validate that all required environment variables are present and correctly formatted before your app starts?
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What security risks are associated with environment variables, and how do you avoid them?

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Answer

The biggest risk is accidentally exposing a secret to the browser by using the NEXT_PUBLIC prefix on something sensitive, or committing an env file containing real secrets to version control. You avoid this by carefully reviewing which variables are public, adding your env files to .gitignore, and using your hosting platform's secret management for production values.
# .gitignore
.env.local
.env.production.local
Real-world example A company accidentally committed a database password to their git repository history, so they rotated the credential immediately and added stricter rules to prevent env files from being tracked in the future.

Common follow-ups: What should you do if a secret is accidentally committed to version control?;How do secret management tools differ from plain environment variable files?

Security Best Practices in Next.js;Deployment
All 5 Environment Variables & Configuration Management questions