500 error when .env file is not created: "No application encryption key has been specified"

[denistorresan]

I recently deployed a new Laravel project checked out directly from git. I figure out that the .env file is in gitignore and when application starts at the first request I get a 500 Internal Server Error because Laravel is unable to find the .env and the encryption key.
In my script I solved adding the following lines just before EXPOSE 8000:

COPY --chown=${USER}:${USER} .env.example .env
RUN php artisan key:generate

I don't know if this can be a good approach, but I think that if developers take care to synchronize the .env.example .env with all the configurations used to the application maybe works.

This is the error log:

2024-05-20 17:58:18    INFO  Server running…
2024-05-20 17:58:18 
2024-05-20 17:58:18   Local: http:https://0.0.0.0:8000 
2024-05-20 17:58:18 
2024-05-20 17:58:18   Press Ctrl+C to stop the server
2024-05-20 17:58:18 
2024-05-20 17:58:19 2024-05-20 15:58:19,020 INFO success: octane_00 entered RUNNING state, process has stayed up for > than 1 seconds (startsecs)
2024-05-20 17:58:19 2024-05-20 15:58:19,021 INFO success: scheduler_00 entered RUNNING state, process has stayed up for > than 1 seconds (startsecs)
2024-05-20 18:00:42 
2024-05-20 18:00:42    Illuminate\Encryption\MissingAppKeyException  No application encryption key has been specified.
2024-05-20 18:00:42 
2024-05-20 18:00:42   0   /var/www/html/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Encryption/EncryptionServiceProvider.php:79
2024-05-20 18:00:42   1   /var/www/html/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Support/helpers.php:307
2024-05-20 18:00:42   2   /var/www/html/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Encryption/EncryptionServiceProvider.php:77
2024-05-20 18:00:42 2024-05-20 16:00:42,719 WARN exited: octane_00 (exit status 1; not expected)
2024-05-20 18:00:43 2024-05-20 16:00:43,721 INFO spawned: 'octane_00' with pid 620

[smortexa]

It's not a good idea. You should find a way to provide the .env file to the container.