Example of production/devel runtime config branching with ZF2 skeleton app.

application.config.php

<?php
// Determine ENV
define('APPLICATION_ENV', getenv('APPLICATION_ENV') == 'development' || PHP_SAPI == 'cli' ? 'development' : 'production');

// Load the appropriate config file
return
    APPLICATION_ENV == 'development' ?
    require __DIR__.'/application.development.config.php' :
    require __DIR__.'/application.production.config.php'
;

application.development.config.php

<?php
// config merging this way is more expensive, but we only do this for DEVELOPMENT
return
    \Zend\Stdlib\ArrayUtils::merge(
    \Zend\Stdlib\ArrayUtils::merge(include __DIR__.'/application.production.config.php',array(

// --- FIRST PASS ------
    'modules' => array(
        'ZFTool',              // we don't need those two modules in production (only in development)
        'ZendDeveloperTools'   // and composer won't even bother installing them because of require-dev
    ),
    'module_listener_options' => array(
        'module_paths'             => false, // <- clear this out
        'config_cache_enabled'     => false,
        'module_map_cache_enabled' => false,
        'check_dependencies'       => true,
    ),

)), array(

// --- SECOND PASS ------

    'module_listener_options' => array(
        'module_paths'             => array( // <- use this array instead
            './vendor_dev',
            './vendor',
            './module',
        ),
    )
));

application.production.config.php

<?php
return array(
    // This should be an array of module namespaces used in the application.
    'modules' => array(
        'DoctrineModule',
        'DoctrineORMModule',
        'ZfcBase',
        'ZfcUser',
        'ZfcUserDoctrineORM',
        'BjyAuthorize',
        'Application',
        'ReverseOAuth2',
    ),

    // These are various options for the listeners attached to the ModuleManager
    'module_listener_options' => array(
        // This should be an array of paths in which modules reside.
        // If a string key is provided, the listener will consider that a module
        // namespace, the value of that key the specific path to that module's
        // Module class.
        'module_paths' => array(
            './module',
            './vendor',
        ),

        // An array of paths from which to glob configuration files after
        // modules are loaded. These effectively overide configuration
        // provided by modules themselves. Paths may use GLOB_BRACE notation.
        'config_glob_paths' => array(
            'config/autoload/{,*.}{global,local}.php',
        ),

        // Whether or not to enable a configuration cache.
        // If enabled, the merged configuration will be cached and used in
        // subsequent requests.
        'config_cache_enabled' => true,

        // The key used to create the configuration cache file name.
        'config_cache_key' => 'config',

        // Whether or not to enable a module class map cache.
        // If enabled, creates a module class map cache which will be used
        // by in future requests, to reduce the autoloading process.
        'module_map_cache_enabled' => true,

        // The key used to create the class map cache file name.
        'module_map_cache_key' => 'modulemap',

        // The path in which to cache merged configuration.
        'cache_dir' => 'data/cache',

        // Whether or not to enable modules dependency checking.
        // Enabled by default, prevents usage of modules that depend on other modules
        // that weren't loaded.
         'check_dependencies' => false,
    ),
);