diff --git a/config/deploy.rb b/config/deploy.rb
index 0bf0aa0..98ed98e 100644
--- a/config/deploy.rb
+++ b/config/deploy.rb
@@ -41,3 +41,7 @@ set :keep_releases, 5
 set :keep_assets, 5
 # Uncomment the following to require manually verifying the host key before first deploy.
 # set :ssh_options, verify_host_key: :secure
+
+namespace :deploy do
+  after  :starting, 'envvars:load'
+end
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diff --git a/lib/capistrano/tasks/envvars.rake b/lib/capistrano/tasks/envvars.rake
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8ed06dc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/capistrano/tasks/envvars.rake
@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+namespace :envvars do
+  desc 'Load environment variables'
+  task :load do
+    # Grab the current value of :default_env
+    environment = fetch(:default_env, {})
+
+    on roles(:app) do
+      # Read in the environment file
+      env_file = fetch(:env_file, "#{fetch(:deploy_to)}/shared/.env")
+      lines = capture("cat #{env_file}")
+      lines.each_line do |line|
+        # Remove the "export " keyword, we have no use for that here
+        line = line.sub /^export /, ""
+        # Clean up the input by removing line breaks, tabs etc
+        line = line.gsub /[\t\r\n\f]+/, ""
+
+        # Grab the key and value from the line
+        key, value = line.split("=")
+
+        # Remove surrounding quotes if present
+        value = value.slice(1..-2) if value.start_with?('"') and value.end_with?('"')
+
+        # Store the value in our :default_env copy
+        environment.store(key, value)
+      end
+
+      # Finally, update the global :default_env variable again
+      set :default_env, environment
+    end
+  end
+end
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