Veil is a Laravel package designed to enhance the management of encrypted environment variables in your Laravel or Laravel Zero applications.
By introducing the --only-values flag to Laravel's env:encrypt and env:decrypt Artisan commands, Veil allows for more readable and maintainable .env files by encrypting only the values of sensitive variables, rather than the entire file.
Enhancing Environment File Readability
In standard Laravel applications, encrypting the environment file results in the entire file being transformed into a single encrypted string:
eyJpdiI6ImplT2xTaGRzV... # Long encrypted string
With Veil, you can selectively encrypt only the values of sensitive variables, keeping the rest of the file human-readable:
APP_NAME="My awesome app" APP_ENV=local APP_DEBUG=true SOME_API_KEY=eyJpdiI6ImplT2xTaGRzV...
This approach improves the readability of the .env file and may reduce the need for a separate .env.example file. Veil extends Laravel's existing env:encrypt and env:decrypt commands. To encrypt only the values of environment variables, use the --only-values flag:
php artisan env:encrypt --only-values php artisan env:decrypt --only-values
By default, when using the --only-values flag, Veil encrypts variables ending with _PASSWORD, _KEY, and _SECRET. You can customize this behavior using the --only option. For example, to encrypt only variables ending with _SECRET and the APP_KEY, run:
php artisan env:encrypt --only-values --only="*_SECRET,APP_KEY"
When decrypting, Veil will leave unencrypted values unchanged.
Learn More
For more information, installation instructions, and source code, visit the Veil GitHub repository.
