dotenv

Automatically load your project ENV variables from .env file when you cd into project root directory.

Storing configuration in the environment is one of the tenets of a twelve-factor app. Anything that is likely to change between deployment environments, such as resource handles for databases or credentials for external services, should be extracted from the code into environment variables.

To use it, add dotenv to the plugins array in your zshrc file:

plugins=(... dotenv)

Usage

Create .env file inside your project root directory and put your ENV variables there.

For example:

export AWS_S3_TOKEN=d84a83539134f28f412c652b09f9f98eff96c9a
export SECRET_KEY=7c6c72d959416d5aa368a409362ec6e2ac90d7f
export MONGO_URI=mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017
export PORT=3001

export is optional. This format works as well:

AWS_S3_TOKEN=d84a83539134f28f412c652b09f9f98eff96c9a
SECRET_KEY=7c6c72d959416d5aa368a409362ec6e2ac90d7f
MONGO_URI=mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017
PORT=3001

You can even mix both formats, although it's probably a bad idea.

Settings

ZSH_DOTENV_FILE

You can also modify the name of the file to be loaded with the variable ZSH_DOTENV_FILE. If the variable isn't set, the plugin will default to use .env. For example, this will make the plugin look for files named .dotenv and load them:

# in ~/.zshrc, before Oh My Zsh is sourced:
ZSH_DOTENV_FILE=.dotenv

ZSH_DOTENV_PROMPT

Set ZSH_DOTENV_PROMPT=false in your zshrc file if you don't want the confirmation message. You can also choose the Always option when prompted to always allow sourcing the .env file in that directory. See the next section for more details.

ZSH_DOTENV_ALLOWED_LIST

The default behavior of the plugin is to always ask whether to source a dotenv file. There's a Yes, No, and Always option. If you choose Always, the directory of the .env file will be added to an allowed list. If a directory is found in this list, the plugin won't ask for confirmation and will instead source the .env file directly.

This allowed list is saved by default in $ZSH_CACHE_DIR/dotenv-allowed.list. If you want to change that location, change the $ZSH_DOTENV_ALLOWED_LIST variable, like so:

# in ~/.zshrc, before Oh My Zsh is sourced:
ZSH_DOTENV_ALLOWED_LIST=/path/to/dotenv/allowed/list

This file is just a list of directories allowed, separated by a newline character. If you want to disallow a directory, just edit this file and remove the line for the directory you want to disallow.

Version Control

It's strongly recommended to add .env file to .gitignore, because usually it contains sensitive information such as your credentials, secret keys, passwords etc. You don't want to commit this file, it's supposed to be local only.

Disclaimer

This plugin only sources the .env file. Nothing less, nothing more. It doesn't do any checks. It's designed to be the fastest and simplest option. You're responsible for the .env file content. You can put some code (or weird symbols) there, but do it on your own risk. dotenv is the basic tool, yet it does the job.

If you need more advanced and feature-rich ENV management, check out these awesome projects:

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