Laravel php artisan serve dose not respect env flag

Question

I'm working on a Laravel Project and try to integrate Laravel Scout. For testing with dusk I have created a .env.dusk.local environment file, that is used for testing. But when I try to run php artisan serve --env=dusk.local it just runs the default .env file. Also all other .env files don't work.

Im using Laravel 8.15.0. I also try clearing the config cache but nothing changed.

I'm currently out of ideas, so hopefully someone can help me.

Answer 1

If you see laravel dusk documentation you can see that there is no need for you to so that your separate dusk env file replaces the original & once the test is done it restores it automatically.

When running tests, Dusk will back-up your .env file and rename your Dusk environment to .env. Once the tests have completed, your .env file will be restored.

---

If it still does not work

You can manually set the env thanks to vlucas/phpdotenv's methods 'load()',

<?php

namespace Tests\Browser;

use App\Models\User;
use Laravel\Dusk\Chrome;
use Tests\DuskTestCase;

class ExampleTest extends DuskTestCase
{
    private function setEnv(){
       $env_name = "dusk.local";
       if (isset($env_name)) {
            // Immutability refers to if Dotenv is allowed to overwrite existing environment variables. If you want Dotenv to overwrite existing environment variables, use createMutable instead of createImmutable(from vlucas/phpdotenv repo)
            $dotenv = \Dotenv\Dotenv::createImmutable(base_path(), '.env.'.$env_name);
    
            try {
                $dotenv->load();
            } catch (\Dotenv\Exception\InvalidPathException $e) {
                $e->getTraceAsString();
            }
        }
    }
    public function testBasicExample()
    {
        $this->setEnv();
    }
}