Stop using env() inside your Laravel application (outside of config/)

I want to share a quick tip about Laravel. I see many people running into trouble when trying to access environment variables inside the application. The most common mistake happens when developers use the env() function directly inside their classes or services to read settings from the .env file, and then can’t figure out why, in some situations, that function returns null.

The explanation is simple: it happens because of Laravel’s initialization flow. To help visualize it, I created a diagram that explains how this process works:

As you can see in the image above, when Laravel receives a request (or runs a command, a job, etc.), it starts from the index.php file, which calls bootstrap/app.php. At that point, Laravel loads the variables from the .env file and, right after that, reads the configuration files in the config/ directory. These settings are then stored in cache (if you run the php artisan config:cache command).

After that point, the Service Providers are registered and the application’s Kernel takes over the execution. That’s why it’s not recommended to use env() to access settings after this stage, because Laravel will no longer depend directly on .env during the application’s lifecycle.

Wrong (not recommended outside of config/):

env('CHAVE')

Right:

config('configuracao.chave')

Following this pattern, you avoid problems with null and ensure that your application is compatible with the configuration cache.