ImproperlyConfigured SECRET_KEY error using django-environ

Question

In my settings, I'm using django-environ to set the key:

import environ

env = environ.Env()    
SECRET_KEY = env.read_env('SECRET_KEY')  

At the root of my project, I do have a .env file with the actual secret key:

.env:

SECRET_KEY=qgw6s66n3e$27mmddfua*8yq6n%gz(!mx8e=@zbixk50-h020  

The error will run during collectstatic. Here's the traceback:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./manage.py", line 10, in <module>
    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
  File "/Users/sju/.virtualenvs/blog-api/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 364, in execute_from_command_line
    utility.execute()
  File "/Users/sju/.virtualenvs/blog-api/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 356, in execute
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
  File "/Users/sju/.virtualenvs/blog-api/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 194, in fetch_command
    settings.INSTALLED_APPS
  File "/Users/sju/.virtualenvs/blog-api/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/conf/__init__.py", line 56, in __getattr__
    self._setup(name)
  File "/Users/sju/.virtualenvs/blog-api/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/conf/__init__.py", line 41, in _setup
    self._wrapped = Settings(settings_module)
  File "/Users/sju/.virtualenvs/blog-api/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/conf/__init__.py", line 110, in __init__
    mod = importlib.import_module(self.SETTINGS_MODULE)
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.12_2/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/importlib/__init__.py", line 37, in import_module
    __import__(name)
  File "/Users/sju/Dev/django/blog-api/src/blog/settings/base.py", line 27, in <module>
    SECRET_KEY = env('SECRET_KEY')
  File "/Users/sju/.virtualenvs/blog-api/lib/python2.7/site-packages/environ/environ.py", line 130, in __call__
    return self.get_value(var, cast=cast, default=default, parse_default=parse_default)
  File "/Users/sju/.virtualenvs/blog-api/lib/python2.7/site-packages/environ/environ.py", line 275, in get_value
    raise ImproperlyConfigured(error_msg)
django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Set the SECRET_KEY environment variable

What am I missing?

Answer 1

I think you are using it wrong. Based on the documentation you first need to load the .env file and then use it.

Try this:

import environ
env = environ.Env()
environ.Env.read_env()
SECRET_KEY = env('SECRET_KEY')

Also make sure the .env file is located in the directory as the settings file. Alternatively, you can pass explicitly pass the location of the file to read_csv().