// locally: use standard settings $mysql = [ 'driver' => 'mysql', 'host' => env('DB_HOST', 'localhost'), 'database' => env('DB_DATABASE', 'forge'), 'username' => env('DB_USERNAME', 'forge'), 'password' => env('DB_PASSWORD', ''), 'charset' => 'utf8', 'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci', 'prefix' => '', ]; // on fortrabbit: construct credentials from App secrets if (getenv('APP_SECRETS')) { $secrets = json_decode(file_get_contents(getenv('APP_SECRETS')), true); $mysql = [ 'driver' => 'mysql', 'host' => $secrets['MYSQL']['HOST'], 'port' => $secrets['MYSQL']['PORT'], 'database' => $secrets['MYSQL']['DATABASE'], 'username' => $secrets['MYSQL']['USER'], 'password' => $secrets['MYSQL']['PASSWORD'], 'charset' => 'utf8', 'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci', 'prefix' => '', ]; } return [ 'default' => env('DB_CONNECTION', 'mysql'), 'connections' => [ 'mysql' => $mysql, ], 'migrations' => 'migrations', // possible other code … ];