How do I setup the dotenv file in Node js

Question

I am trying to use the dotenv NPM package and it is not working for me  I have a file config config js with the following content    use strict    var dotenv   require  dotenv    dotenv load    console log  config      I have another file  env at the root of my application folder  I also have an environment variable TWILIO ACCOUNT SID    This is the process I go through while trying to use the environment variables in a certain function     node  gt  require    config config js    config     gt  process env TWILIO ACCOUNT SID undefined   I defined the TWILIO ACCOUNT SID in my  env file but as soon as I try to output the value in my console  I get the error that it is undefined    If you have any suggestions on how to troubleshoot this problem that will be very much appreciated

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If you use  firebase-functions  to host your sever-side-rendered application  you should be aware of this one      error  Error  ENOENT  no such file or directory  open  C  Codes url shortener functions  env    Means you have to store the  env file in the functions folder as well   Found this one by   console log require  dotenv   config

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const dotenv   require  dotenv          path     require  path   dotenv config  path  path join   dirname       env

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There s a lot of confusion about this topic and in these answers  I m not surprised  that no single answer was accepted  Hopefully yet  The answer by Basheer indeed solves most of the problems  However  there are few things you still need to know  Especially  if you re coming  like me  from frontend background and wants to add secrets to your frontend  Possibly  related to the introduction of some Server-Side Rendering  SSR  logic in the app  Most probably you ve seen this code in your webpack settings in a frontend app to solve the issue  as a frontend developer     Custom webpack properties     const dotenv   require  dotenv-webpack     module exports       plugins        new dotenv       Handle environemntal variables on localhost  but on the Server-Side Rendering  SSR   There s no access to  quot process env quot  on the browser           Now  it ll work out fine  if you render on the server  SSR  across your app if the  env file is in the root of your project  However  it might not work if you have some custom server-related settings  An example of such situation is Angular Universal  Nuxt js handles this much easier in which require  dotenv   config   in your next config js and makes you good to go  That s due to difference in philosophies between how Angular and Vue js are handling SSR  To get Angular Universal app from Angular that s just 1 command  but the SSR app isn t as nicely organized as Nuxt js  It comes with a price that to generate Nuxt js app from Vue js  you basically have to generate a new Nuxt js project and copy files due to quite some differences between Nuxt js and Vue js setup  Don t know how React Next js and Svelte Sapper solves this  but if similarly to Angular then you also might consider reading further  Now  you ve some server-related logic in a separated folder called server and let say the file is called main ts  Maybe apart SSR in that file  you can also have sending mail  nodemailer   logic  Then you d like to use process env  but apparently it doesn t work  even though you have the logic defined in webpack  That s where the require  dotenv   config    is needed  even if you re using different syntax for import  such as import   Express   from  express   for example   require  dotenv   config    will work like that  Don t feel confused  As long as  env is in the root of your app  don t confuse with server folder  and the variables have correct syntax inside that file  e g  MAIL ACCOUNT mymail mydomain com MAIL HOST smtp mydomain com MAIL PORT 587  It ll work  Last scenario  in the SSR app you realised that to host this app you need something called Serverless Cloud Functions FaaS  Here  I know only Firebase scenario  In your project  to deploy such app you might have functions folder  from which you deploy the SSR app to the Cloud Functions for Firebase  in this example  What a surprise  on a deployment mail is not working and after hours of figuring out what s happening in the logs you can see process env VARIABLE NAME returning undefined  The reason is that as of today the CLI cannot merge files from other locations and indeed the  env file has to be manually copied to the functions folder  Once copy paste the  env file to functions and deploy  it ll work  What you can use for debugging is one of those  console log require  dotenv   config     console log require  dotenv   config  debug  true       However  be careful with your secrets  because these will be revealed when your  env setup will be done  Trying to access one of the secrets and trying to log its value in the logs might be more secure option  Especially  if you have many secrets and don t want to rewrite all  Hope so this one post will cover most of the scenarios

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In my case  every time I tried to get a key from the  env file using process env MY KEY  it returned undefined   I suffered from this problem for two hours just because I named the file something like keys env which is not considered to be a  env file   So here is the troubleshooting list    The filename should be  env  I believe  env test is also acceptable   Make sure you are requiring it as early as possible in your application using this statement require  dotenv   config    The  env file should be in the root directory of your project   Follow the  file writing rules  like DB HOST localhost  no need to wrap values in double single quotes    Also  check the documentation of the package on the NPM site

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Take care that you also execute your Node script from the ROOT folder   E g  I was using a testing script in a subfolder called   bin test js  Calling it like  node   bin test js worked totally fine   Calling it from the subfolder like     pwd   bin   node   test js   causes dotenv to not find my    env file

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i didn t put my environment variables in the right format as was in the dotenv module documentation e g  i was doing export TWILIO CALLER ID   wwehehe  and so the dotenv module wasn t parsing my file correctly  When i noticed that i removed the export keyword from the declarations and everything worked fine

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I had a problem also with  env variables not loading and being undefined   What I tried   index js   import dotenv from  dotenv   dotenv config    import models from    models     models js  import Sequelize from  sequelize   const sequelize   new Sequelize      process env DATABASE      process env DATABASE USER      process env DATABASE PASSWORD                dialect   postgres              Apparently  because of how loading the imports works in nodejs  the import of models in index js caused that the models js was executed before dotenv config    Therefore I got undefined values from process env   When I changed models js to do the dotenv configuration like   import Sequelize from  sequelize   import dotenv from  dotenv   dotenv config    const sequelize   new Sequelize      process env DATABASE      process env DATABASE USER      process env DATABASE PASSWORD                dialect   postgres              it started to work

User · Answer

Had the same problem  I used dotenv-webpack and need to define  plugins      new Dotenv       in both webpack production and webpack base files  I use webpack merge   If was not defined in both files then it did not work

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In my case  I was creating a vscode extension in which   dirname  was referring to something like d  extension my extension out  the root folder was my extension  but   dirname was pointing to my extension out so I fixed it by writing require  dotenv   config  path    dirname slice 0 -3     env

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If you are facing this problem it could be that the environment variable s  is added loaded after the file that requires the specific variable  const express   require  express     const app   express    const mongoose   require  mongoose    const dotenv   require  dotenv    const morgan   require  morgan     const passport   require  passport      you want to use process env JWT SECRET  you will get undefined   dotenv config      in the above case  you will get undefined for the process env JWT SECRET  So the solution is that you put dotenv config   before const passport   require  passport     const express   require  express     const app   express    const mongoose   require  mongoose    const dotenv   require  dotenv    const morgan   require  morgan    dotenv config       const passport   require  passport      you want to use process env JWT SECRET  you will get the value for the enviroment variable

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For React apps created with the create-react-app template  you don t need to use dotenv directly  react-scripts does that for you   Simply creates a  env file in the top level directory of your project and add all your envs there  but notice that they MUST start with REACT APP prefix  otherwise they will be ignored   More details in their documentation  I just spent a couple of hours dealing with this and hope it will save you some time

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The   env  file should be in the root directory of your node js server file  server js  or for me     If you placed the   env  file at the root of your project  it won t work  My mistake was that I have the server js file nested in a folder named  controller    So I had to fix it by placing the  env file in the same directory as the server js file

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I am using NodeJS on windows 10  I used process env var-name to access the variables but failed because it gives me windows path variables as a JSON object  so I installed dotenv   npm install dotenv    dotenv  gets process envirnoment variables from your project s  evn file   npm install dotenv or yarn add dotenv      const dotenv   require  dotenv    dotenv config         process env variable name       output

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I had the same problem  I had created a file named  env  but in reality the file ended up being  env txt   I created a new file  saved it in form of  No Extension  and boom  the file was real  env and worked perfectly

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Working Solution   If you are using webpack  which you definitely should   use a very handy plugin dotenv-webpack which solves the issue of reading environment variables from  env file     Make sure  env is in root directory of your project    Steps to install the plugin     npm i -D dotenv-webpack  In webpack config file         const Dotenv   require  dotenv-webpack         module exports                             plugins                    new Dotenv                                                             Now you can call any environment variable defined in  env file using process env in any js file

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I solved this just renaming the file to  env to y file was named config env   when I renamed to  env   it works

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On some operating sytems  mostly some linux distros  I am looking at you raspbian    env files don t work  rename them and import that

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I cloned a repo from Github and went through every one of the suggestions here  After a lot of frustration  I realized that npm install did not install any of the modules and my node modules folder was empty the whole time    QUICK FIX  1  delete your node modules folder 2  delete your package-lock json 3  run npm install

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My code structure using is as shown below  - env -app js -build -src     -modules          -users              -controller                    -userController js   I have required  env at the top of my app js  require  dotenv   config    import express   require  express    import bodyParser from  body-parser   import mongoose   require  mongoose      The process env PORT works in my app listen function  However  on my userController file not sure how this is happening but my problem was I was getting the secretKey value and type as string when I checked using console log   but getting undefined when trying it on jwt sign   e g   console log  Type     process env ACCESS TOKEN SECRET  console log process env ACCESS TOKEN SECRET    Result   string secret   jwt sign giving error  let accessToken   jwt sign userObj  process env ACCESS TOKEN SECRET     not working    Error was      Argument of type  string   undefined  is not assignable to parameter of type  Secret     Type  undefined  is not assignable to type  Secret     My Solution  After reading the documentation  I required the env again in my file  which I probably should have in the first place   and saved it to variable  environment   let environment   require  dotenv   config      console logging environment this gives     parsed        DB HOST   localhost       DB USER   root       DB PASS   pass       PORT   3000       ACCESS TOKEN SECRET   secretKey           Using it on jwt sign not works  let accessToken   jwt sign userObj  environment parsed ACCESS TOKEN SECRET     Hope this helps  I was stuck on it for hours  Please feel free to add anything to my answer which may help explain more on this

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In my case  I ve created a wrapper JS file in which I have the logic to select the correct variables according to my environment  dynamically    I have these two functions  one it s a wrapper of a simple dotenv functionality  and the other discriminate between environments and set the result to the process env object    x000D   x000D  setEnvVariablesByEnvironment       gt   x000D    return new Promise  resolve   gt   x000D   x000D     if  process env NODE ENV     undefined    process env NODE ENV     development    x000D      logger info  Lower   Development environment was detected    x000D   x000D      environmentManager getEnvironmentFromEnvFile   x000D        then envFile   gt    x000D        resolve envFile   x000D           x000D   x000D      else  x000D      logger warn  Production or Stage environment was detected     x000D      resolve   x000D       payload  process env  x000D       flag  true  x000D       status  0  x000D       log   Returned environment variables placed in  env file   x000D          x000D       x000D   x000D   x000D        x000D       x000D   x000D      x000D   Get environment variables from  env file  using dotEnv npm module  x000D       x000D   getEnvironmentFromEnvFile       gt    x000D    return new Promise  resolve   gt   x000D     logger info  Trying to get configuration of environment variables from  env file    x000D   x000D     env config   x000D      debug   process env NODE ENV     undefined    process env NODE ENV      development   x000D         x000D   x000D     resolve   x000D      payload  process env  x000D      flag  true  x000D      status  0  x000D      log   Returned environment variables placed in  env file   x000D         x000D        x000D      x000D   x000D   x000D    So  in my server js file i only added the reference   const envManager   require    lib application config environment environment-manager      And in my entry-point  server js   it s just simple as use it    envManager setEnvVariablesByEnvironment    then envVariables  gt       process env  envVariables payload       const port   process env PORT EXPOSE      microService listen port   0 0 0 0         gt            let welcomeMessage    Micro Service started at   Date now              logger info welcomeMessage            logger info    configuration about name  port configured  - gt      port             logger info  App Author    configuration about owner             logger info  App Version    configuration about version             logger info  Created by    configuration about author

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This is how i fix my issue  Intially had this in  env of the root of my project  const db port   90101 const db host  localhost  const db username  name  const db password  pwd  const db name  db    And all my env variables where undefined   I fixed it by removing all the const and using just key value insted of  const key  value   db port   90101 db host localhost db username name db password pws db name db

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I spent a lot of time going through these fixes  I was developing locally and just had to restart the server because the  env file isn t hot reloaded

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I had the same problem  I realized my file was somehow encoded in UCS-2 BE BOM  Converting my  env file to UTF-8 fixed it  you can easily do that using Notepad    for example

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Had the same issue recently  Check your  env file and use equal sign not colon  Here s an example   key value   instead of   key value

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I had to literally use no name for the  env file  just have the  env extension and save the file like that and it worked

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Save yourself some troubleshooting time and log your require call  like so   console log require  dotenv   config      You should see an error with more detailed info on the problem

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Make sure that variables are not already set  Dotenv won t override them   If variables are set then you will have to remove them  In powershell you can use the following command - as mentioned here   Remove-Item Env  MyTestVariable

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I ve noticed something here myself   I ve defined  env correctly  etc and i d defined DATABASE URL in there but despite doing so another DATABASE URL was being referenced  perhaps a global environment variable is referenced if it exists    Anyhow  I found that when I defined TEST and CONNECTION STRING within  env these both were referenced correctly where as DATABASE URL continues to not be    Thanks   Michael

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is dotenv installed in your project   Try to install it using npm install dotenv in your project   Once it is installed load it in any files where you need it using const env   require  dotenv   config     You can then use in any line where you need to  For example to call port from  env use  process env PORT

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My problem was stupid  I created the  env in a text editor  and when I saved it it actually saved as     env txt     which was only visible after I did a    ls -a    in terminal and saw the file name    A quick   mv  env txt  env   And I was in business

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i had similar problem  i solved it by trim  Please check  path resolve may add additional space to end of path  var path   require  path    const envPath   path resolve process cwd     config    env   process env NODE ENV  trim   require  dotenv   config   path  envPath     my package script is like this to use multiple  env    quot scripts quot          quot start quot    quot set NODE ENV development  amp  amp  nodemon   bin www quot        quot prod quot    quot set NODE ENV production  amp  amp  node   bin www quot

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Make sure to set cwd in the pm2 config to the correct directory for any calls to dotenv config     Example  Your index js file is in  app src  your  env file is in  app  Your index js file has this  dotenv config  path       env      Your pm2 json config should have this   cwd     app src    script    index js   You could also use dotenv config  path  path join   dirname       env      to avoid the CWD issue  You will still have a problem if you move the  env or the index js file relative to each other

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I had the same problem and I tried 4 hours to find the fault  In my case  it was bizarre   When I tried  node app js   it worked  When I wanted a daemon to start it  it did not work   How did I solve my problem  I replaced   var dotenv   require  dotenv    dotenv load      with   var dotenv   require  dotenv   config  path  path join   dirname    env

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I solved this using   require  dotenv   config  path    dirname      env      or with an absolute path   C   asd  auhsd   env   If it does not find the  env file  it will return undefined

[node.js] How do I setup the dotenv file in Node.js?

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