title: Django Cookiecutter using environment variables pattern in production
body: <p>I am trying to understand how to work with production .env files in a django cookie cutter generated project.</p>
  
  <p>The documentation for this is here:</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://cookiecutter-django.readthedocs.io/en/latest/developing-locally-docker.html#configuring-the-environment" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://cookiecutter-django.readthedocs.io/en/latest/developing-locally-docker.html#configuring-the-environment</a></p>
  
  <p>The project is generated and creates .local and .production folders for environment variables.</p>
  
  <p>I am attempting to deploy to a docker droplet in digital ocean.</p>
  
  <p>Is my understanding correct:</p>
  
  <p>The .production folder is <b>NEVER</b> checked into source control and are only generated as examples of what to create on a production machine when I am ready to deploy? </p>
  
  <p>So when I do deploy , as part of that process I need to do a pull/clone of the project on the docker droplet and then either </p>
  
  <p>manually create the .production folder with the production environment variables folder structure?</p>
  
  <p>OR </p>
  
  <p>RUN merge_production_dotenvs_in_dotenv.py locally to create .env file that I copy onto production and the configure my production.yml to use that?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks
  Chris</p>