The "mass" of code is an API controller, not just a way to get settings. It's an example of config use in real code. There are roughly 4 lines of code to get two variables out of the settings.json. This scales quite nicely - if we needed 8 different variables from settings then it would be 10 lines of code for 8 variables.

Sure, it could be done in one line. My point wasn't to say that this is the most terse environmental variable code possible. My point was to say that it's disingenuous to say "look at the sheer length of that answer" as a way to state that the way to get env variables is hugely bloated. It's literally one ctor param and one private variable. If you don't like that for stylistic reasons, that's fine. I understand the argument saying "there should just be a static class with a readonly prop per variable", I just don't think that this particular code is in real terms actually any worse.