Using environment variables to store secrets instead of writing them directly into your code is one of the quickest and easiest ways to add a layer of protection to your projects. There are many ways to use them, but a properly utilized `.env` file is one of the best, and I’ll explain why.
They’re Project Scoped
Environment variables are a part of every major operating system: Windows, MacOS, and all the flavors of *nix (Unix, BSD, Linux, etc.). They can be set at an operating system level, user level, session level… It gets complicated, and where/how you define them matters to the scope in which they can be accessed.
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