Environment detection for multiple instances like (staging / production) on the same server (Laravel 4.1) Blog post: http://www.volkomenjuist.nl/blog/2014/01/17/laravel-4-and-environment-detection/

environment.php

<?php

return 'staging'; //or 'production'

start.php

<?php

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Create The Application
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| The first thing we will do is create a new Laravel application instance
| which serves as the "glue" for all the components of Laravel, and is
| the IoC container for the system binding all of the various parts.
|
*/

$app = new Illuminate\Foundation\Application;


/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Bind Paths
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Here we are binding the paths configured in paths.php to the app. You
| should not be changing these here. If you need to change these you
| may do so within the paths.php file and they will be bound here.
|
*/

$app->bindInstallPaths(require __DIR__.'/paths.php');

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Detect The Application Environment
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Laravel takes a dead simple approach to your application environments
| so you can just specify a machine name or HTTP host that matches a
| given environment, then we will automatically detect it for you.
|
*/

$env = $app->detectEnvironment(function () use ($app) {

    $environment = include $app['path.base'].'/app/storage/settings/environment.php';
    return $environment ? $environment : 'local';

});

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Load The Application
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Here we will load the Illuminate application. We'll keep this is in a
| separate location so we can isolate the creation of an application
| from the actual running of the application with a given request.
|
*/

$framework = $app['path.base'].'/vendor/laravel/framework/src';

require $framework.'/Illuminate/Foundation/start.php';

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Return The Application
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| This script returns the application instance. The instance is given to
| the calling script so we can separate the building of the instances
| from the actual running of the application and sending responses.
|
*/

return $app;