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Skills / Starter / Document an environment variable

Starter Code skill

Document an environment variable

Document an environment variable as a configuration contract with purpose, type, default, scope, secrecy, validation, and failure behavior.

Describe behavior without publishing secret values.

When to use

  • Use for required, optional, feature, endpoint, credential, limit, or compatibility configuration.
  • Never place real secrets, tokens, personal data, or production-only values in documentation or example files.

Procedure

  1. Record exact name, owner, consuming component, purpose, environments, and lifecycle.
  2. Define type, format, unit, allowed values, default, empty behavior, and precedence.
  3. State required versus optional and distinguish build-time, startup, and runtime reading.
  4. Mark secret classification, injection source, rotation, logging, and redaction rules.
  5. Document validation and observable behavior for missing, invalid, stale, or unreachable values.
  6. Provide safe example placeholders and related variables or feature flags.
  7. Add startup or configuration tests and ensure error messages do not expose values.
  8. Update deployment, local setup, and removal documentation together.

Related skills

  • Document a service dependency — Document a service dependency's contract, ownership, limits, failure behavior, observability, and recovery path.
  • Handle api errors — Handle API failures with stable classification, safe user feedback, controlled retries, and useful diagnostics.
  • Define alert severity — Define alert severity from user impact, urgency, scope, reversibility, and required authority.