[robertziel]

Opened by mistake, withdrawn.

[cla-checker-service]

❌ Author of the following commits did not sign a Contributor Agreement:
80b79a9

Please, read and sign the above mentioned agreement if you want to contribute to this project

[github-actions]

🤖 GitHub comments

Just comment with:

• run docs-build : Re-trigger the docs validation. (use unformatted text in the comment!)

[mergify]

This pull request does not have a backport label. Could you fix it @robertziel? 🙏
To fixup this pull request, you need to add the backport labels for the needed
branches, such as:

• backport-8.19 is the label to automatically backport to the 8.19 branch.
• backport-9./d is the label to automatically backport to the 9./d branch. /d is the digit.
• backport-active-all is the label that automatically backports to all active branches.
• backport-active-9 is the label that automatically backports to all active minor branches for the 9 major.

[Copilot]

🟡 Changes recommended

The .env loaders reject valid Compose syntax and overwrite exported overrides, causing port mismatches, test failures, or aborted monitoring setup.

2 open issues

• Parse .env with Compose-compatible syntax · New
• Preserve exported environment overrides · New

What changed in this PR

Moves deployment-specific Docker Compose settings into required environment variables, with a documented .env.example, while keeping image tags literal for existing tooling.

Changes:

• Makes bind address, ports, heap size, log level, and service credentials configurable.
• Loads .env in system-test and monitoring entry points, and creates it in CI.
• Documents setup and excludes the local .env from version control.

File	Description
testing/​stack-monitoring.sh	Loads .env and uses the configured Kibana port.
Makefile	Requires and loads .env for system tests.
docker-compose.yml	Replaces hardcoded settings and defaults with required variables.
dev_docs/​TESTING.md	Documents environment setup and system-test commands.
.gitignore	Ignores the root .env file.
.github/​workflows/​ci.yml	Copies example settings before starting CI stacks.
.env.example	Documents required settings and provides starter values.

_{Review effort: Balanced}