Worked on backend improvements for the rivenmedia/riven repository, focusing on environment configuration and error handling using Python. Addressed a critical bug by refining environment variable parsing and validation, ensuring that invalid or empty values no longer caused startup or runtime crashes. Enhanced the logging setup by introducing default values for logger variables and providing more descriptive error messages, which streamlined diagnostics and debugging across different deployment environments. Applied consistent code formatting with Black to improve maintainability. The work emphasized robust backend development practices, resulting in more reliable configuration management and smoother deployments without introducing new features during the period.