MySQL does not read user specific options in ~/.my.cnf

I want the server to run an initial SQL query every time it starts:

[mysqld]
init-connect='SET NAMES utf8mb4'

and I want it to be only user specific not globally. so I created a .my.cnf in my user’s home directory(~/.my.cnf) but when I try to see if it has affected the server it does not show my added setting and it seems that my settings are being ignored by the server:

    mysqld --print-defaults
------------------------------------
--user=mysql 
--pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid 
--socket=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock 
--port=3306 
--basedir=/usr 
--datadir=/var/lib/mysql 
--tmpdir=/tmp 
--lc-messages-dir=/usr/share/mysql 
--skip-external-locking 
--bind-address=0.0.0.0 --

key_buffer_size=16M 
--max_allowed_packet=16M 
--thread_stack=192K 
--thread_cache_size=8 
--myisam-recover-options=BACKUP 
--query_cache_limit=1M 
--query_cache_size=16M 
--log_error=/var/log/mysql/error.log 
--expire_logs_days=10 
--max_binlog_s

ize=100M 
--default_password_lifetime=0

also this is the result of SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'character_set_%'; :

I want theses params to be set to 'utf8mb4' wach time the server boots.

character_set_client
character_set_results
character_set_connection

also I should say that I use Laravel Vagrant as my development environment

init-connect is ignored when you connect as the MySQL root user.

Check the file config/database.php for Laravel. It needs to say something like: 'mysql' => [..., 'charset' => 'utf8mb4', 'collation' => 'utf8mb4_unicode_ci', ...]

With the mysql client, to use a character set different from the default, you could explicitly execute SET NAMES every time you start up.

To accomplish the same result more easily, add the --default-character-set option setting to your mysql command line or in your option file. For example, the following option file setting changes the three connection-related character set variables set to koi8r each time you invoke mysql:

[mysql]
default-character-set=koi8r  

If you are using the mysql client with auto-reconnect enabled (which is not recommended), it is preferable to use the charset command rather than SET NAMES. For example:

mysql> charset utf8

Charset changed

The charset command issues a SET NAMES statement, and also changes the default character set that mysql uses when it reconnects after the connection has dropped.