ASSET_URL not working with Inertia/Vue build

Apologies if this has been answered or addressed before.

The title says it all. I am trying to build prefixed assets with a remote URL in Inertia/Vite. I downloaded these through Jetstream, so not sure if this makes a difference.

My .env file is using -

ASSET_URL=

And my vite.config.js is using -

export default defineConfig({ base: '', plugins: [ laravel({ input: 'resources/js/app.js', refresh: true, }), vue({ template: { transformAssetUrls: { base: null, includeAbsolute: false, }, }, }), ],

I have been wrestling with this for this best part of day, so would love a solution and to know the cause of the issue.