How do you use python-decouple to load a .env file

Question

I'm forced to keep my .env file in a non-standard path outside the root of my project (in a separate directory altogether).

Let's say I have my Django project in /var/projects/my_project, though I have my .env file in /opt/envs/my-project/.env where my SECRET_KEY is stored. In my settings.py file, I'd like to explicitly use the .env file at that path so that I can still do this:

from decouple import config
secret_key = config('SECRET_KEY')

Answer 1

I figured it out.

Instead of importing decouple.config and doing the usual config('FOOBAR'), create a new decouple.Config object using RepositoryEnv('/path/to/env-file').

from decouple import Config, RepositoryEnv

DOTENV_FILE = '/opt/envs/my-project/.env'
env_config = Config(RepositoryEnv(DOTENV_FILE))

# use the Config().get() method as you normally would since 
# decouple.config uses that internally. 
# i.e. config('SECRET_KEY') = env_config.get('SECRET_KEY')
SECRET_KEY = env_config.get('SECRET_KEY')

Hopefully this helps someone.