Python’s permissive truthiness almost got me annoyed, except that my initial thought was silly anyway. The entire get function is almost something pleasantly concise: os.getenv(…) or getattr(…) or default, except for the annoying presence of entirely valid False (and, because Python, numeric zero/empty string/empty list etc) values in the config data.

Collapsing a chain of Maybe/Option-like things is such a common situation that I’m sure there are elegant Pythonic solutions, but then I’m getting into silly overengineering territory for only two such values.