what keeps overwriting my bootstrap/cache in Laravel - development

what keeps overwriting my bootstrap/cache in Laravel

The instructions for installing a query builder for dynamodb in Laravel which include the step

“Update DynamoDb config in config/dynamodb.php”

Obviously then I put in the required credentials.

I then create a test model and that’s fine but periodically,
Keeps on stripping the values back to:

 'dynamodb' => 
  array (
   'default' => 'aws',
   'connections' => 
   array (
     'aws' => 
     array (
       'credentials' => 
         array (
         'key' => NULL,
         'secret' => NULL,
         'token' => NULL,
       ),
    'region' => NULL,
    'debug' => NULL,
  ),

I tried also putting the values in my .env file as such:

DYNAMODB_KEY=
DYNAMODB_SECRET=
DYNAMODB_REGION=

But these are not read.
Is there a step somewhere I have missed?

Many thanks

from Laravel Questions and Answers https://laravelquestions.com/laravel/what-keeps-overwriting-my-bootstrap-cache-in-laravel/
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