Nested keys are not being accepted by nconf

[Redsandro]

I have this confusing situation where nested keys from my .env file are ignored by nconf when using certain Docker containers, e.g.: FROM node:8.

The exact same thing works fine with different containers, e.g.: FROM node:8-alpine

What causes this inconsistency? Can I remedy this within node? Or is the only solution to this problem to use a different separator?

If the latter is the case, I think using colon (:) as the default is a bad idea, and the default should be changed to something that works on all containers.

PS - I have observed the same behavior using a dash/minus symbol (-). It is accepted by nconf on node:8-alpine but not on node:8.