dotenv-cra

Create React App style dotenv support for
Node projects. Combine a base .env file with a .env.${NODE_ENV} file to
create your optimum configuration.

Note: It's not recommended that you store secrets (like private API keys) in
your .env file(s). Secret configuration values should be managed and provided
as part of your hosting solution.

Install

``
npm i dotenv-cra
`

Usage

Not much new here. As with dotenv, import/require dotenv-cra and configure it
as early as possible. This ensures that any modules reading values from
process.env can retrieve the expected values.

⚠️ Warning: The NODE_ENV variable must be set, so you may choose to default it
in your application before calling config().

`ts
import { config } from 'dotenv-cra';

process.env.NODE_ENV = process.env.NODE_ENV || 'development';
config();
`

_Note_ When using NodeJS v15 or higher you can use Logical Nullish Assignment as well:

`ts
process.env.NODE_ENV ??= 'development';
`

At a minimum, create a base .env file in the root directory of your project
with KEY=value entires on each line. However, if that's all you ever do, you
don't need this library 😉. To see the real value of dotenv-cra, try creating a
second .env.development file with some new and some overlapping KEY=value
pairs.

`


.env

LOG_LEVEL=info
PORT=3001

.env.development

LOG_LEVEL=debug

Loaded into process.env

LOG_LEVEL=debug
PORT=3001
`

What .env files can be used?

- .env: Default.
- .env.local: Local overrides. This file is loaded for all environments except test.
- .env.development, .env.test, .env.production: Environment-specific settings.
- .env.development.local, .env.test.local, .env.production.local: Local overrides of environment-specific settings.

Files on the left have more priority than files on the right:

- npm start: .env.development.local, .env.local, .env.development, .env
- npm test: .env.test.local, .env.test, .env (note .env.local is missing)

CRA Reference

Options

$3

Default: process.env.NODE_ENV

You may specify a custom environment if you don't want to base the .env.*
files you load on NODE_ENV. For example, you may want NODE_ENV set to
production, but you want to load the .env.staging file.

`ts
dotenvCra.config({ env: process.env.AWS_ENV });
`

$3

Default: none

You may specify a required prefix for your dotenv variables. For example, you
may want to prefix your variables with WEB_API_ to ensure there aren't any
collisions with other environment variables.

`ts
dotenvCra.config({ prefix: 'WEB_API_' });
`

$3

Default: path.resolve(process.cwd(), '.env')

You may specify a custom path if your file containing environment variables is
located elsewhere. This will also be used as the basis for resolving the other
.env.* files.

`ts
dotenvCra.config({ path: '/full/custom/path/to/your/.env' });
`

$3

Default: utf8

You may specify the encoding of your file containing environment variables.
Passed through to dotenv.

`ts
dotenvCra.config({ encoding: 'latin1' });
`

$3

Default: false

You may turn on logging to help debug why certain keys or values are not being
set as you expect. Passed through to dotenv.

`ts
dotenvCra.config({ debug: process.env.DEBUG });
``

Credits

Thanks to these projects for this simple yet powerful approach 👏

- dotenv
- dotenv-expand
- create-react-app