Exactly. There are tools that allow debugging production environments without having to have the credentials on your disk.

I recommend Envie: https://github.com/ilmari-h/envie

It's more convenient than having a bunch of .env.prod, .env.staging files laying around, not to mention more secure.

for a complete solution to dev envs and production secret management I use Envie https://github.com/ilmari-h/envie it's like a drop in replacement for traditional env files