envrun

Run a command using environment variables declared in a file.

Summary

Envrun mimics the behavior of Foreman but applied to running arbitrary commands rather than processes declared in a Procfile. By default, envrun reads environment variables from a file called .env and adds a PORT variable set to 3000. If you haven't guessed, I use this for running Node.js scripts and services on my development machine.

Installation

Install with npm install envrun -g.

Usage

The basic form takes a command to be executed and reads the environment variables from .env:

$ envrun my-script.sh

You can provide arguments to the command:

$ envrun node my-utility.js

You can override the default PORT value with -p:

$ envrun -p node server.js

You can of course specify a different environment file with -e:

$ envrun -e remote-dev.env node my-utility.js

A value provided by -p takes precedence over a PORT value from the environment file, which takes precendence over the default value of 3000.

If you want to include the calling environment's PATH, then use the --path flag:

$ envrun --path mocha

You can confirm what's going on with your OS's env command:

$ envrun env

Sample environment file

DATABASE="my_dev_db"
S3_KEY=sodif7s297ydh297yh92
NAME="My Full Name" # Comments are OK
# The line below will get ignored
#LOGGING=QUIET