.env for prod and developpment with nodejs

Question

I saw lot of different ways, some looked normal some others looked a bit more patchworked.

Can we use package json script to chose our env variables ? What is the right way to do it with nodeJS and how to do it ?

I have already made an .env. It contains api keys which are global for dev and prod. But I have some variables, the URL variable for exemple, which won't be the same depending on dev or prod.

Here are my scripts in the package.json

 ... "scripts": { "dev": "nodemon app.js", "prod": "node app.js" }

I personally prefer not to attach and maintain extra libraries for some trivial tasks that can be achieved with few lines of code and reading key/value pairs from .env file seems to me fairly simple. — Yevhen Horbunkov
– Yevhen Horbunkov, Commented May 7, 2021 at 12:39

Ayzrian · Accepted Answer · 2021-05-07 12:30:01Z

1

Use cross-env package to define a NODE_ENV for the command you are running. e.g. "prod": "cross-env NODE_ENV=production node app.js"
In the code, read the env file based on the NODE_ENV config. FWIW dotenv package can help with reading .env files.

answered May 7, 2021 at 12:30

Ayzrian

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3 Comments

Yevhen Horbunkov Over a year ago

Just a quick note: cross-env is no longer maintained

crg Over a year ago

Thank you both, if cross-env is no longer maintained I guess it's better looking for something else

Ayzrian Over a year ago

Well nope, you should use it. It is a reliable tool. The only reason it is not maintained is that the developer won't add new features, but the package does its purpose like a charm, so no worries.

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