of any other Contributor, and only if You agree to indemnify,
      defend, and hold each Contributor harmless for any liability
      incurred by, or claims asserted against, such Contributor by reason
      of your accepting any such warranty or additional liability.

   END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS

   APPENDIX: How to apply the Apache License to your work.

      of any other Contributor, and only if You agree to indemnify,
      defend, and hold each Contributor harmless for any liability
      incurred by, or claims asserted against, such Contributor by reason
      of your accepting any such warranty or additional liability.

   END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS

   APPENDIX: How to apply the Apache License to your work.

      of any other Contributor, and only if You agree to indemnify,
      defend, and hold each Contributor harmless for any liability
      incurred by, or claims asserted against, such Contributor by reason
      of your accepting any such warranty or additional liability.

   END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS

   APPENDIX: How to apply the Apache License to your work.

      of any other Contributor, and only if You agree to indemnify,
      defend, and hold each Contributor harmless for any liability
      incurred by, or claims asserted against, such Contributor by reason
      of your accepting any such warranty or additional liability.

   END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS

   APPENDIX: How to apply the Apache License to your work.

      of any other Contributor, and only if You agree to indemnify,
      defend, and hold each Contributor harmless for any liability
      incurred by, or claims asserted against, such Contributor by reason
      of your accepting any such warranty or additional liability.

   END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS

   APPENDIX: How to apply the Apache License to your work.

      of any other Contributor, and only if You agree to indemnify,
      defend, and hold each Contributor harmless for any liability
      incurred by, or claims asserted against, such Contributor by reason
      of your accepting any such warranty or additional liability.

   END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS

   APPENDIX: How to apply the Apache License to your work.

Most of these settings are variable (can change), like database URLs. And many could be sensitive, like secrets.

For this reason it's common to provide them in environment variables that are read by the application.

/// tip

To understand environment variables you can read [Environment Variables](../environment-variables.md){.internal-link target=_blank}.

   * Preconditions.checkNotNull.
   *
   * (verifyNotNull has many fewer "problem" callers, so we could try to be stricter. On the other
   * hand, verifyNotNull arguably has more reason to accept nullable arguments in the first
   * place....)
   */

  /**
   * Ensures that {@code reference} is non-null, throwing a {@code VerifyException} with a default
   * message otherwise.
   *

      of any other Contributor, and only if You agree to indemnify,
      defend, and hold each Contributor harmless for any liability
      incurred by, or claims asserted against, such Contributor by reason
      of your accepting any such warranty or additional liability.

   END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS

   APPENDIX: How to apply the Apache License to your work.

 * Generally speaking, this class reduces object allocation and memory consumption at the price of
 * moderately increased constant factors of CPU. Only use this class when there is a specific reason
 * to prioritize memory over CPU.
 *
 * @author Dimitris Andreou
 * @author Jon Noack
 */
@GwtIncompatible // not worth using in GWT for now
@ElementTypesAreNonnullByDefault