Heroku - Declare it as envvar or define a default value

Question

I am trying to run my Heroku app locally and followed the instructions from here.

When I tried to run the following command:

python manage.py collectstatic

I've got this error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "manage.py", line 15, in <module>
execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
File "C:\Python36-32\lib\site-packages\django\core\management\__init__.py", line 371, in execute_from_command_line
utility.execute()
File "C:\Python36-32\lib\site-packages\django\core\management\__init__.py", line 317, in execute
settings.INSTALLED_APPS
File "C:\Python36-32\lib\site-packages\django\conf\__init__.py", line 56, in __getattr__
self._setup(name)
File "C:\Python36-32\lib\site-packages\django\conf\__init__.py", line 43, in _setup
self._wrapped = Settings(settings_module)
File "C:\Python36-32\lib\site-packages\django\conf\__init__.py", line 106, in __init__
mod = importlib.import_module(self.SETTINGS_MODULE)
File "C:\Python36-32\lib\importlib\__init__.py", line 126, in import_module
return _bootstrap._gcd_import(name[level:], package, level)
File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 994, in _gcd_import
File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 971, in _find_and_load
File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 955, in _find_and_load_unlocked
File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 665, in _load_unlocked
File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>", line 678, in exec_module
File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 219, in _call_with_frames_removed
File "C:\Users\robina\Ubelt-Dorm\ph_dorms\settings.py", line 25, in <module>
SECRET_KEY = config('SECRET_KEY')
File "C:\Python36-32\lib\site-packages\decouple.py", line 197, in __call__
return self.config(*args, **kwargs)
File "C:\Python36-32\lib\site-packages\decouple.py", line 85, in __call__
return self.get(*args, **kwargs)
File "C:\Python36-32\lib\site-packages\decouple.py", line 70, in get
raise UndefinedValueError('{} not found. Declare it as envvar or define a default value.'.format(option))
decouple.UndefinedValueError: SECRET_KEY not found. Declare it as envvar or define a default value.

The SECRET_KEY has been declared as a Config Variable on Heroku.

I've reached out to Heroku but still no response so maybe someone from here could find the solution to this error before them.

I want to run this app locally with the same version as web so adding SECRET_KEY on the settings.py is not a route for me.

My settings.py is configured this way:

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

Answer 1

You can set local env vars by adding them to a .env file, and then starting your development server via heroku local. This will convert all NAME=value lines from .env to env vars and make then available to your app. You can then add .env to your .gitignore, as this is only required on your local machine. See https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/heroku-local#set-up-your-local-environment-variables for more details.