This PR provides a .env file and a note in the readme on how to connect to a mongo database.

[RobertSandiford]

This PR provides a .env file, .env loading and a note in the readme on how to connect to a mongo database.

This was missing from the default setup, making it unusable without further advice.

[boutell]

Sounds like this was a frustrating situation. FYI it works out of the box without this if mongodb is running on the same computer and is not restricted to require passwords, which is typical when installing community edition on a development machine.

This is something that our documentation could cover better, but I think we'd want to do more internal discussion before adopting dotenv as an official practice. cc @abea

[RobertSandiford]

@boutell

Sure. The most helpful thing would just be an explanation in the getting started guide.

Dotenv and an .env file could be provided as a suggestion that people can implement themselves if they want to. Dotenv is pretty standard I think - but I can see you've tried to keep the repo very light on dependencies (generally a good thing).

It's also likely to come up when it comes to deploying.