What takes priority, System ENV or .env file?

Currently the .env file does NOT override the system environment.

I agree and think I can argue for system environment variables having the last say (because it is useful when setting up an environment for e.g. testing to have the env vars scoped). I would argue however that they shouldn't, by default at least, be in the .htaccess that is included in the public folder. The problem with this is that is makes it harder to programatically change the environment when running e.g. continuous integration or tests.

I just wanted to be sure that the sys env has last say is intentional?

Relevant function: https://github.com/bcit-ci/CodeIgniter4/...v.php#L124

Also, while I'm here... is there any place to discuss the development more "live"... like IRC or Slack or?