refactor: Enhance environment configuration and loading mechanism

- Implement flexible environment variable loading strategy
- Add support for environment-specific and local override configuration files
- Create new `loadEnv.ts` module for dynamic environment configuration
- Update configuration loading in multiple config files
- Remove deprecated `.env.development.template`
- Add setup script for environment validation
- Improve WebSocket error handling and client configuration

src/config/app.config.ts

@@ -1,23 +1,5 @@
-import { config } from "dotenv";
-import { resolve } from "path";
 import { z } from "zod";
 
-/**
- * Load environment variables based on NODE_ENV
- * Development: .env.development
- * Test: .env.test
- * Production: .env
- */
-const envFile =
-  process.env.NODE_ENV === "production"
-    ? ".env"
-    : process.env.NODE_ENV === "test"
-      ? ".env.test"
-      : ".env.development";
-
-console.log(`Loading environment from ${envFile}`);
-config({ path: resolve(process.cwd(), envFile) });
-
 /**
  * Application configuration object
  * Contains all configuration settings for the application

src/config/hass.config.ts

@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ const envFile =
 
 config({ path: resolve(process.cwd(), envFile) });
 
+// Base configuration for Home Assistant
 export const HASS_CONFIG = {
   // Base configuration
   BASE_URL: process.env.HASS_HOST || "http://localhost:8123",

src/config/index.ts

@@ -1,16 +1,7 @@
-import { config } from "dotenv";
-import { resolve } from "path";
+import { loadEnvironmentVariables } from "./loadEnv";
 
-// Load environment variables based on NODE_ENV
-const envFile =
-  process.env.NODE_ENV === "production"
-    ? ".env"
-    : process.env.NODE_ENV === "test"
-      ? ".env.test"
-      : ".env.development";
-
-console.log(`Loading environment from ${envFile}`);
-config({ path: resolve(process.cwd(), envFile) });
+// Load environment variables from the appropriate files
+loadEnvironmentVariables();
 
 // Home Assistant Configuration
 export const HASS_CONFIG = {

src/config/loadEnv.ts

@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
+import { config as dotenvConfig } from "dotenv";
+import fs from "fs";
+import path from "path";
+
+/**
+ * Maps NODE_ENV values to their corresponding environment file names
+ */
+const ENV_FILE_MAPPING: Record<string, string> = {
+    production: ".env.prod",
+    development: ".env.dev",
+    test: ".env.test",
+};
+
+/**
+ * Loads environment variables from the appropriate files based on NODE_ENV.
+ * First loads environment-specific file, then overrides with generic .env if it exists.
+ */
+export function loadEnvironmentVariables() {
+    // Determine the current environment (default to 'development')
+    const nodeEnv = (process.env.NODE_ENV || "development").toLowerCase();
+
+    // Get the environment-specific file name
+    const envSpecificFile = ENV_FILE_MAPPING[nodeEnv];
+    if (!envSpecificFile) {
+        console.warn(`Unknown NODE_ENV value: ${nodeEnv}. Using .env.dev as fallback.`);
+    }
+
+    const envFile = envSpecificFile || ".env.dev";
+    const envPath = path.resolve(process.cwd(), envFile);
+
+    // Load the environment-specific file if it exists
+    if (fs.existsSync(envPath)) {
+        dotenvConfig({ path: envPath });
+        console.log(`Loaded environment variables from ${envFile}`);
+    } else {
+        console.warn(`Environment-specific file ${envFile} not found.`);
+    }
+
+    // Finally, check if there is a generic .env file present
+    // If so, load it with the override option, so its values take precedence
+    const genericEnvPath = path.resolve(process.cwd(), ".env");
+    if (fs.existsSync(genericEnvPath)) {
+        dotenvConfig({ path: genericEnvPath, override: true });
+        console.log("Loaded and overrode with generic .env file");
+    }
+}
+
+// Export the environment file mapping for reference
+export const ENV_FILES = ENV_FILE_MAPPING;