Setting Environment Variables for Node to retrieve

Question

I m trying to follow a tutorial and it says      There are a few ways to load credentials          Loaded from environment variables    Loaded from a JSON file on disk          The keys need to be as follows   USER ID  USER KEY          This means that if you properly set your environment variables  you   do not need to manage credentials in your application at all    Based on some Googling  it appears that I need to set the variables in process env   How and where do I set these credentials   Example Please

User · Answer

It depends on your operating system and your shell

On linux with the shell bash, you create environment variables like this(in the console):

export FOO=bar

For more information on environment variables on ubuntu (for example):

Environment variables on ubuntu

User · Answer

If you are using a mac linux and you want to retrieve local parameters to the machine you re using  this is what you ll do    In terminal run nano    bash profile add a line like  export MY VAR var save  amp  run source    bash profile in node use like  console log process env MY VAR

User · Answer

As expansion of  ctrlplusb answer   I would suggest you to also take a look to the env-dot-prop package   It allows you to set get properties from process env using a dot-path   Let s assume that your process env contains the following   process env       FOO BAR   baz     FOO     42      Then you can manipulate the environment variables like that   const envDotProp   require  env-dot-prop     console log process env       gt   FOO BAR   baz    FOO     42    envDotProp get  foo        gt   bar   baz        42    envDotProp get  foo         gt   42   envDotProp get  foo     parse  true        gt  42  envDotProp set  baz foo    bar    envDotProp get      parse  true        gt   foo   bar   baz       42   baz   foo   bar     console log process env       gt   FOO BAR   baz    FOO     42   BAZ FOO   bar    envDotProp delete  foo    envDotProp get          gt   baz   foo   bar     console log process env       gt   BAZ FOO   bar     This helps you to parse the environment variables and use them as a config object in your app  It also helps you implement a 12-factor configuration

User · Answer

Came across a nice tool for doing this   node-env-file  Parses and loads environment files  containing ENV variable exports  into Node js environment  i e  process env - Uses this style    env    some env variables  FOO foo1 BAR bar1 BAZ 1 QUX    QUUX

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If you want a management option  try the envs npm package  It returns environment values if they are set  Otherwise  you can specify a default value that is stored in a global defaults object variable if it is not in your environment   Using  env   dot ee-en-vee   or environment files is good for many reasons  Individuals may manage their own configs  You can deploy different environments  dev  stage  prod  to cloud services with their own environment settings  And you can set sensible defaults    Inside your  env file each line is an entry  like this example   NODE ENV development API URL http   api domain com TRANSLATION API URL  translations  GA UA 987654321-0 NEW RELIC KEY hi-mom SOME TOKEN asdfasdfasdf SOME OTHER TOKEN zxcvzxcvzxcv   You should not include the  env in your version control repository  add it to your  gitignore file    To get variables from the  env file into your environment  you can use a bash script to do the equivalent of export NODE ENV development right before you start your application      bin bash while read line  do export   line   done  lt source  env   Then this goes in your application javascript   var envs   require  envs        If NODE ENV is not set      then this application will assume it s prod by default  app set  environment   envs  NODE ENV    production          Usage examples  app set  ga account   envs  GA UA     app set  nr browser key   envs  NEW RELIC BROWSER KEY     app set  other   envs  SOME OTHER TOKEN

User · Answer

You can set the environment variable through process global variable as follows   process env  NODE ENV      production     Works in all platforms

User · Answer

For windows users this Stack Overflow question and top answer is quite useful on how to set environement variables via the command line   How can i set NODE ENV production in Windows

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Just provide the env values on command line  USER ID  abc  USER KEY  def  node app js

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Environment variables  in this case  are being used to pass credentials to your application  USER ID and USER KEY can both be accessed from process env USER ID and process env USER KEY respectively  You don t need to edit them  just access their contents   It looks like they are simply giving you the choice between loading your USER ID and USER KEY from either process env or some specificed file on disk    Now  the magic happens when you run the application   USER ID 239482 USER KEY foobar node app js  That will pass the user id 239482 and the user key as foobar  This is suitable for testing  however for production  you will probably be configuring some bash scripts to export variables

User · Answer

Windows-users  pay attention  These commands are recommended for Unix but on Windows they are only temporary  They set a variable for the current shell only  as soon as you restart your machine or start a new terminal shell  they will be gone    SET TEST  hello world    env TEST    hello world      To set a persistent environment variable on Windows you must instead use one of the following approaches   A   env file in your project - this is the best method because it will mean your can move your project to other systems without having to set up your environment vars on that system beore you can run your code     Create an  env file in your project folder root with the content  TEST  hello world  Write some node code that will read that file  I suggest installing dotenv   npm install dotenv --save  and then add require  dotenv   config    during your node setup code   Now your node code will be able to accessprocess env TEST   Env-files are a good of keeping api-keys and other secrets that you do not want to have in your code-base  Just make sure to add it to your  gitignore    B  Use Powershell - this will create a variable that will be accessible in other terminals  But beware  the variable will be lost after you restart your computer    Environment   SetEnvironmentVariable  TEST    hello world    User     This method is widely recommended on Windows forums  but I don t think people are aware that the variable doesn t persist after a system restart      C  Use the Windows GUI    Search for  Environment Variables  in the Start Menu Search or in the Control Panel Select  Edit the system environment variables   A dialogue will open  Click the button  Environment Variables  at the bottom of the dialogue  Now you ve got a little window for editing variables  Just click the  New  button to add a new environment variable  Easy

User · Answer

I was getting undefined after setting a system env var  When I put APP VERSION in the User env var  then I can display the value from node via process env APP VERSION

User · Answer

Step 1  Add your environment variables to their appropriate file  For example  your staging environment could be called  env staging  which contains the environment variables USER ID and USER KEY  specific to your staging environment   Step 2  In your package json file  add the following    scripts        build    sh -ac       env   REACT APP ENV   react-scripts build       build staging    REACT APP ENV staging npm run build      build production    REACT APP ENV production npm run build             then call it in your deploy script like this   npm run build staging   Super simple set up and works like a charm   Source  https   medium com  tacomanator environments-with-create-react-app-7b645312c09d

User · Answer

Like ctrlplusb said  I recommend you to use the package dotenv  but another way to do this is creating a js file and requiring it on the first line of your app server   env js   process env VAR1  Some value  process env VAR2  Another Value    app js   require  env   console log process env VAR1     Some value

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I highly recommend looking into the dotenv package   https   github com motdotla dotenv  It s kind of similar to the library suggested within the answer from  Benxamin  but it s a lot cleaner and doesn t require any bash scripts  Also worth noting that the code base is popular and well maintained   Basically you need a  env file  which I highly recommend be ignored from your git mercurial etc    FOO bar BAZ bob   Then in your application entry file put the following line in as early as possible   require  dotenv   config      Boom  Done    process env  will now contain the variables above   console log process env FOO      bar   The   env  file isn t required so you don t need to worry about your app falling over in it s absence

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Make your life easier with dotenv-webpack  Simply install it npm install dotenv-webpack --save-dev  then create an  env file in your application s root  remember to add this to  gitignore before you git push   Open this file  and set some environmental variables there  like for example   ENV VAR 1 1234 ENV VAR 2 abcd ENV VAR 3 1234abcd   Now  in your webpack config add   const Dotenv   require  dotenv-webpack    const webpackConfig       node    global  true  fs   empty        Fix   Uncaught ReferenceError  global is not defined   and  Can t resolve  fs      output        libraryTarget   umd     Fix   Uncaught ReferenceError  exports is not defined          plugins   new Dotenv       module exports   webpackConfig     Export all custom Webpack configs    Only const Dotenv   require  dotenv-webpack     plugins   new Dotenv     and of course module exports   webpackConfig     Export all custom Webpack configs  are required  However  in some scenarios you might get some errors  For these you have the solution as well implying how you can fix certain error   Now  wherever you want you can simply use process env ENV VAR 1  process env ENV VAR 2  process env ENV VAR 3 in your application

User · Answer

A very good way of doing environment variables I have successfully used is below   A  Have different config files      dev js    this has all environment variables for development only The file contains   module exports      ENV   dev    someEnvKey1    some DEV Value1    someEnvKey2    some DEV Value2      stage js    this has all environment variables for development only        qa js    this has all environment variables for qa testing only The file contains     module exports      ENV   dev    someEnvKey1    some QA Value1    someEnvKey2    some QA Value2        NOTE  the values are changing with the environment  mostly  but keys remain same    you can have more   z  prod js    this has all environment variables for production live only NOTE  This file is never bundled for deployment Put all these config files in  config  folder   lt projectRoot gt  config dev js  lt projectRoot gt  config qa js  lt projectRoot gt  config z  prod js  lt projectRoot gt  setenv js  lt projectRoot gt  setenv bat  lt projectRoot gt  setenv sh    NOTE  The name of prod is different than others  as it would not be used by all   B  Set the OS  Lambda  AzureFunction  GoogleCloudFunction environment variables from config file  Now ideally  these config variables in file  should go as OS environment variables  or  LAMBDA function variables  or  Azure function variables  Google Cloud Functions  etc      so  we write automation in Windows OS  or other    Assume we write  setenv  bat file  which takes one argument that is environment that we want to set Now run  setenv dev      a  This takes the input from the passed argument variable   dev  for now  b  read the corresponding file   config dev js   c  sets the environment variables in Windows OS  or other     For example   The setenv bat contents might be       node setenv js   The setenv js contents might be          import  process env ENV  js file  dev js example         loop the imported file contents            set the environment variables in Windows OS  or  Lambda  etc     That s all  your environment is ready for use   When you do  setenv qa   all qa environment variables will be ready for use from qa js  and ready for use by same program  which always asks for process env someEnvKey1  but the value it gets is qa one    Hope that helps

[node.js] Setting Environment Variables for Node to retrieve

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