Hello everyone,

This is to address a potential problem I see on the horizon.

I have a Next.js 14 project deployed on Vercel. By default, git.ignore doesn't upload env.development.local with the database variables to the remote Git repo, for obvious security reasons. Pardon my ignorance, but since these database variables are nonetheless indispensable to connect to the database and deploy the repo:

Since the remote Git repo and the database are connected in Vercel, is Vercel able to supply those variables behind the scenes and make everything work?

How does this work with other non-Vercel databases? In those cases, Vercel doesn't have access to database variables, and if they're not uploaded to the remote Git repo, how can those projects be deployed successfully?

Thanks in advance!