Variable not found. Declare it as envvar or define a default value

Question

I am very new to Django and trying to configure python-decouple to use .env variables. I am getting DB_PASSWORD not found. Declare it as envvar or define a default value. when trying to run the server. The .env file is located in the root directory. Here is my code:

settings.py

import os
from decouple import config

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
        'NAME': 'db_development',
        'USER': "db_user",
        'PASSWORD': config('DB_PASSWORD'),
    }
}

my_app.env

DB_PASSWORD=my_password

Answer 1

Change the name of the file: my_app.env must be .env.

From the source code:

class AutoConfig(object):
    """
    Autodetects the config file and type.
    """
    SUPPORTED = {
        'settings.ini': RepositoryIni,
        '.env': RepositoryEnv,
    }