Crystal type inference failure due to environment-specific environment variables

Crystal utilizes a static type system that resolves types entirely at compile-time. While code often compiles successfully in a local environment, builds can fail in production CI/CD pipelines if environment-specific variables used for configuration are not synchronized.

The issue typically arises when the application relies on environment variables to initialize objects with specific type signatures. If a variable is missing or contains an unexpected string format in the production environment, the compiler may fail to resolve the dependent type, leading to a build-time error that was not present during local development where the env file was fully populated.

How can the compiler be instructed to handle missing or malformed environment-dependent types during the static analysis phase? Is there a mechanism to define fallback types that satisfy the type checker without resorting to Any?