I added a SECRET_KEY config variable to my Django app on Heroku but now it won't work locally

Question

I changed my secret key to an environment variable on my Heroku app. I changed it because I found out that keeping the secret key in settings.py was a security

Answer 1

You have to set your environmental variables in your development environment.

Windows

Go to Computer > Properties > Advanced System Settings.
Go to the Advanced tab, and at the bottom there is an Environment Variables... button.

In there you can edit the variables as you like.

Linux

Edit /etc/environment to include:

SECRET_KEY = 

or

You should be using a virtual environment to isolate your system Python installation from your different projects (it solves conflicting version requirements) and to make deployment easier. Virtualenv Tutorial

To activate your virtual environment when you want to use it there is a shell script located at /bin/activate that handles changing all the environmental variables that make the virtual environment work.

Add:

SECRET_KEY=''
export SECRET_KEY

to the bottom of the activate file and when it is run it will add (export) the environmental variable.