Just a thought. This might actually be trivial to implement in a unix environment from the administration side of things. I'm not 100% sure but all child processes inherit the env vars from the parent correct? So setting `environment=production` high up in the process tree should make it available to all processes.
There's still chances of this getting overridden down the line and all apps have to conform to one style but at least it's possible?
Absolutely. But none of the major players are looking for it, and they all have unique ways of designating the machine that way.
There's no specific technological challenges, this is entirely political, getting half a dozen or more different projects with different priorities to check the same variable for the same purpose.
There's still chances of this getting overridden down the line and all apps have to conform to one style but at least it's possible?