Setting Laravel environment for acceptance testing (in Behat)

.env.json

{"env":"local"}

FeatureContext.php

<?php
class FeatureContext extends MinkContext implements SnippetAcceptingContext {

    private static $envFilePath;

    private static $previousEnv;

    const TEST_ENVIRONMENT = 'acceptance';

    /**
     * Initializes context.
     *
     * Every scenario gets its own context object.
     * You can also pass arbitrary arguments to the context constructor through behat.yml.
     */
    public function __construct() {
    }

    /**
     * @static
     * @beforeSuite
     */
    public static function bootstrapLaravel() {
        static::$envFilePath = __DIR__ . '/../../.env.json';
        self::$previousEnv = self::getEnvironment();
        self::setEnvironment(self::TEST_ENVIRONMENT);

        $unitTesting = true;
        $testEnvironment = self::TEST_ENVIRONMENT;
        require_once __DIR__ . '/../../bootstrap/start.php';
    }

    /**
     * @static
     * @afterSuite
     */
    public static function cleanUp() {
        self::setEnvironment(self::$previousEnv);
    }

    /**
     * @static
     * @beforeScenario @db
     */
    public static function migrateDb() {
        Artisan::call('migrate:refresh');
    }

    private static function setEnvironment($environment) {
        $envFile = self::parseEnvFile();
        $envFile->env = $environment;
        file_put_contents(static::$envFilePath, json_encode($envFile));
    }

    private static function getEnvironment() {
        $envFile = self::parseEnvFile();

        return $envFile->env;
    }

    private static function parseEnvFile() {
        $envFile = json_decode(file_get_contents(static::$envFilePath));

        return $envFile;
    }
}

start.php

<?php
//  boostrap/start.php

$env = $app->detectEnvironment(function () {
    $envFilePath = __DIR__.'/../.env.json';
    $env = getenv('LARAVEL_ENV');

    if (file_exists($envFilePath) && $env == 'local') {
        $envFile = json_decode(file_get_contents($envFilePath));
        $env = $envFile->env;

        return $env;
    }

    return $env ?: 'local';
});