environmentsfrom

Environmentsfrom is a term used in configuration and orchestration contexts to describe a mechanism that builds a final environment map by collecting and merging environment data from multiple sources. It is not a universally standardized language construct, but is used in several toolchains and Domain Specific Languages to simplify the propagation of environment variables to processes and services.

Mechanism: Accepts sources list; each source can be a file (for example YAML, JSON, dotenv), a directory, or an in-memory dictionary. The implementation merges sources in a defined order, with later sources overriding earlier ones. It supports variable expansion, default values, and optional filtering to include or exclude variables.

Usage example: In a hypothetical syntax, env = environmentsfrom('base.env','local.env','secrets.json'); subprocess = spawn('myapp', env=env).

Considerations: Handling secrets; source security; cross-platform consistency; performance. See also environment variables, dotenv, configuration management, orchestration.