@nodesuite/env

Simple environment .env file parser with recursive search.

Background

In nearly every case, I would suggest using the excellent dotenv family of libraries as they are well maintained and better supported:

• dotenv-defaults

Primary Use-Cases

The primary reasons for creating this package are the following scenarios where dotenv loses contact with the location of the intended .env files:

1. When bundling and packaging a Node application as a binary, as the final executable may be moved around the end-user's filesystem in unpredictable locations.
2. When working within a monorepo, dotenv is sometimes unable to locate the correct file when deeply nested.

Although the dotenv family of libraries allow specifying a location of the file, this package handles locating the file when the location is unknown.

Importantly, the primary concern is loading .env files into process.env as opposed to acting as a full configuration manager.

It can be used prior to initialization of a larger configuration package such as mozilla/node-convict or nconf in edge-cases where .env files cannot be located by the main library.

Additional Use-Cases

Additional use-cases this package handles are:

• Passing a specific .env file path for an arbitrary location to a child process using explicit environment variables.
• When called manually, allows filtering of sensitive keys with string or regex pattern.

Usage

Inline

Example usage alongside convict:

import "@nodesuite/env"

import convict from "convict"

const config = convict({
	env: {
		doc: "The application environment (always in process.env).",
		format: ["development", "test", "production"],
		default: "development",
		env: "NODE_ENV"
	},
	foo: {
		doc: "Example variable (loaded from .env file).",
		format: Boolean,
		default: false,
		env: "FOO"
	}
})

Manual

import { load , type Env} from "@nodesuite/env"

interface MyEnv extends Env {
  MY_SAFE_VALUE?: string
	MY_UNSAFE_VALUE: never
	RANDOM_API_KEY: never

}
const { env } = load({
	filters: ["MY_UNSAFE_VALUE", /API_KEY/g]
})