VITE_API_BASE_URL is inlined into the public JS bundle at build time, so it is
readable by anyone who opens the site. Ignoring it protected nothing and only
meant the value had to be remembered and re-passed as --build-arg on every
deploy - which is exactly how the bundle ended up pointing at a host that did
not exist.
Vite reads .env during `npm run build`, so the Docker build now picks the domain
up on its own and needs no build arg. Verified: a build with no --build-arg
bakes in https://mcp.nearle.ai.in.
.env.local stays ignored for local overrides. Nothing secret belongs in a
VITE_-prefixed variable - it would be published in the bundle.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
