# ADR-007: Configuration and Secrets Management

**Date**: 2025-12-12

**Status**: Proposed

## Context

The application currently accesses environment variables directly via `process.env`. This can lead to missing variables at runtime, inconsistent naming, and a lack of type safety. It is difficult to know at a glance which environment variables are required for the application to run.

## Decision

We will introduce a centralized, schema-validated configuration service. We will use a library like `zod` to define a schema for all required environment variables. A singleton service will parse `process.env` at application startup, validate it against the schema, and provide a type-safe configuration object to the rest of the app. The application will fail fast on startup if any required configuration is missing or invalid.

## Consequences

**Positive**: Improves application reliability and developer experience by catching configuration errors at startup rather than at runtime. Provides a single source of truth for all required configuration.
**Negative**: Adds a small amount of boilerplate for defining the configuration schema. Requires a one-time effort to refactor all `process.env` access points to use the new configuration service.
