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The problem

Some projects need secrets to work locally: an OpenAI key, a Stripe test key, a sandbox API token password…

They sit in .env or ~/.bashrc in plain text. Every process on your machine can read them: a malicious dependency, a rogue agent, a compromised application.

The solution

Dotlock moves secrets to .env.secrets, a gitignored file that looks like .env but the values are encrypted with a passphrase you choose:

Now run php artisan dev:

Dotlock prompts for your passphrase, decrypts the values, and the usual Laravel dev processes start with the secrets in their environment variables. Secrets are never written to disk.

Laravel then runs as usual. Nothing else in the application changes.

[!NOTE] Dotlock works with php artisan dev, it doesn't work with Herd or Valet. Their PHP-FPM is started by the OS, not by your shell, so we cannot inject the secrets into their environment.

Install

Add this at the top of bootstrap/app.php, before Application::configure():

Then add the file to .gitignore:

You could commit it to share the secrets with teammates, but you'd have to share the passphrase and everyone would share the same secrets.

Usage

Import a secret from .env or add a new one:

If the secret was already in .env, it is moved to .env.secrets. The passphrase is your password that unlocks everything, it is never stored anywhere, remember it!

Leave non-secret environment variables in .env, .env.secrets is only for secrets.

Start working:

Other commands:

For non-interactive use (scripts, a shell you trust…), export the passphrase in APP_SECRETS_KEY (every artisan command unlocks the secrets automatically):

You can also read it from your password manager rather than typing it into shell history, e.g. with 1Password:

Limits

• config:cache and optimize are forbidden while a .env.secrets exists. Caching config resolves every env() call and writes the answers to bootstrap/cache/config.php in plain text. That would put your secrets on disk in plaintext, so Dotlock blocks it.
• Tests don't unlock secrets. When APP_ENV is testing, .env.secrets are never read even with the passphrase in the environment.
• Commands without the passphrase don't have the secrets. E.g. if Claude Code runs an artisan command, the environment variables of .env.secrets will be empty in Laravel. The artisan command will work as long as it doesn't need the secrets (e.g. php artisan migrate, etc.) so most of the time there is no problem.
• Requests served by Herd or Valet do not unlock secrets. Their PHP-FPM is started by the OS, not by your shell, so it never sees APP_SECRETS_KEY.

How it works

• The passphrase is stretched with Argon2id into a key that opens one thing: a random master key kept encrypted in the file's header. The master key encrypts the values with XSalsa20-Poly1305 (libsodium's secretbox). Changing the passphrase rewrites one line, not every value.
• Encryption is authenticated, so a wrong passphrase and a corrupted file are detected outright, the vault can never hand back plausible-looking garbage.
• Values are base64 on one line whatever they contain, so the vault can hold variables with any value (unlike .env): a multi-line PEM key, a value with quotes or # in it.
• The file is chmod 0600, and the passphrase is never stored anywhere. There is no recovery if the passphrase is lost.

Alternatives

php artisan env:encrypt

It encrypts the whole .env into .env.encrypted meant to be committed and decrypted on deploy. It solves prod secrets, not your local machine: to use it you run env:decrypt, and the plaintext .env is back on disk. Dotlock encrypts value by value, keeps the names readable, and the decrypted values only ever exist in process memory.

1Password CLI

In theory, you could set API_TOKEN="$(op read op://Private/my-app/token)" in .env, but that doesn't work out of the box (.env files are parsed, not executed). To make it work, you have to wrap every command with op run (op is the 1Password CLI). For example op run --env-file .env -- php artisan tinker. This is a pain to remember and type. On top of that, some values live in .env and some in the 1Password vault, which is not the best DX.

Apple Keychain

The Apple Keychain has a CLI to read secrets, but it is macOS-only and has no integration with .env or Laravel. You'd have to run commands like API_TOKEN="$(security find-generic-password -s my-app -a api-token -w)" php artisan tinker. And secrets stored this way can be read back silently by any process running as your user, the Keychain doesn't prompt when a malicious script shells out to the same command.