dotenv-defaults

What is dotenv-defaults?

The dotenv-defaults package is an extension of the dotenv package that allows you to load environment variables from a .env file, with the added functionality of specifying default values in a .env.defaults file. This is particularly useful for setting up default configurations while allowing overrides through a .env file.

What are dotenv-defaults's main functionalities?

Load environment variables with defaults

This feature allows you to load environment variables from a .env file and fall back to default values specified in a .env.defaults file if the variables are not defined in the .env file.

const dotenv = require('dotenv-defaults');
dotenv.config();

console.log(process.env.MY_VARIABLE);

Specify custom paths for .env and .env.defaults files

This feature allows you to specify custom paths for your .env and .env.defaults files, giving you flexibility in organizing your configuration files.

const dotenv = require('dotenv-defaults');
dotenv.config({
  path: './config/.env',
  defaults: './config/.env.defaults'
});

console.log(process.env.MY_VARIABLE);

Override default values with environment variables

This feature allows you to override default values specified in the .env.defaults file with environment variables set in the .env file or directly in the environment.

const dotenv = require('dotenv-defaults');
process.env.MY_VARIABLE = 'override_value';
dotenv.config();

console.log(process.env.MY_VARIABLE);

Other packages similar to dotenv-defaults

dotenv

The dotenv package is a zero-dependency module that loads environment variables from a .env file into process.env. It does not support default values out of the box, but it is widely used and can be extended with custom logic to achieve similar functionality.

env-defaults

The env-defaults package allows you to set default values for environment variables directly in your code. It does not use .env or .env.defaults files, but it provides a programmatic way to set defaults, which can be useful in certain scenarios.

config

The config package provides a more comprehensive configuration management solution, supporting multiple configuration files, environment-specific configurations, and more. It is more complex than dotenv-defaults but offers greater flexibility and features.

README

dotenv-defaults

A dotenv system that supports defaults

Status

Installation

Use the following to install this module.

npm i dotenv-defaults --save

Usage

This module supports all the features from the original dotenv module, so usage should be simple enough:

# .env.defaults, safe to commit
HOST=website.com
EMAIL=[e-mail]

# .env, DO NOT COMMIT
HOST=omnionline.us

The result

require('dotenv-defaults').config()

// Or you can also load it directly like this
require('dotenv-defaults/config')

console.log(process.env.HOST)
// Outputs: omnionline.us

console.log(process.env.EMAIL)
// Outputs: [e-mail]

TypeScript

Since this module does not provide TypeScript Type Definitions if you try to import it like import dotenv from "dotenv-defaults" TypeScript will return an error.

Instead you should load it like this:

import "dotenv-defaults/config"

CLI

You can also call this module directly when using the node executable. So, for example if you are running a custom script with node and you want to load your environment variables you can do the following node -r dotenv-defaults/config your-script.js. (When using this method, please make sure that you have installed dotenv-defaults with npm or yarn in the same directory)

Differences

The only thing to note is that the original module supported an options argument in the config function.

This module supports that as well, but there is an added defaults property that can allow you to define where that file is located. An example is shown below:

// all of these are the default values...
require(`dotenv-defaults`).config({
  path: './.env',
  encoding: 'utf8',
  defaults: './.env.defaults' // This is new
})

License

MIT