What is the laravel way of storing API keys?

Question

Is there a specific file or directory that is recommended for storing API keys? I'd like to take my keys out of my codebase but I'm not sure where to put them.

Answer 1

You can make your API keys environment variables and then access them that way. Read more about protecting sensitive configuration from the docs.

You simply create a .env.php file in the root of your project that returns an array of environment variables.

<?php

return array(
    'SECRET_API_KEY' => 'PUT YOUR API KEY HERE'
);

Then you can access it in your app like so.

getenv('SECRET_API_KEY');