How to set some environment variables from within package.json to be used with npm start like commands?
Here's what I currently have in my package.json:
{
...
"scripts": {
"help": "tagove help",
"start": "tagove start"
}
...
}
I want to set environment variables (like NODE_ENV) in the start script while still being able to start the app with just one command, npm start.
Set the environment variable in the script command:
...
"scripts": {
"start": "node app.js",
"test": "NODE_ENV=test mocha --reporter spec"
},
...
Then use process.env.NODE_ENV in your app.
Note: This is for Mac & Linux only. For Windows refer to the comments.
set NODE_ENV=test&& mocha --reporter spec - there is no space between the test and && on purpose. –
Dorison npm run-script build. Error thrown 'NODE_ENV' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file` –
Fisher "test": "NODE_ENV=test mocha --reporter spec" will not work on Windows systems. –
Homovec NODE_ENV set to 'test ' (note the space). No space is a way to avoid that in case you don't want to (or can't) use quotes. –
Overrun cross-env NODE_ENV=test karma start –
Tachyphylaxis env NODE_ENV=test mocha --reporter spec will use the declared environment variable in a natively cross platform fashion, but the key is it is used by npm in an ad hoc and one-time fashion, just for the npm script execution. (It's not set or exported for future reference.) As long as you're running your command from the npm script, there's no issue. Also, the "&&" must be removed when doing it this way. –
Messy mode=prod npm run print and you have a script in your package.json called print "print": "echo environment '$mode'" it will print environment 'prod' –
Parting Note: env ensures that it works across platforms. How? env is not a valid command on Windows. –
Schnorrer env you refer to here? Can you post a link? –
Enchorial bash command in cmd to change to a Linux environment too. –
Inmost bash set NODE_ENV=development && ts-node --transpile-only src/index.ts This will actually include a white space as well as the end of the value, fix it by removing the white space: bash set NODE_ENV=development&& ts-node --transpile-only src/index.ts Wasted half an hour debugging this dumb bug lol –
Dasi Just use NPM package cross-env. Super easy. Works on Windows, Linux, and all environments. Notice that you don't use && to move to the next task. You just set the env and then start the next task. Credit to @mikekidder for the suggestion in one of the comments here.
From documentation:
{
"scripts": {
"build": "cross-env NODE_ENV=production OTHERFLAG=myValue webpack --config build/webpack.config.js"
}
}
Notice that if you want to set multiple global vars, you just state them in succession, followed by your command to be executed.
Ultimately, the command that is executed (using spawn) is:
webpack --config build/webpack.config.js
The NODE_ENV environment variable will be set by cross-env
"test": "cross-env TS_NODE_COMPILER_OPTIONS='{\\\"module\\\":\\\"commonjs\\\"}' mocha" –
Toehold env or cross-env? On one hand, env doesn't require me to install anything and on the other hand cross-env is more popular. Can someone please confirm if env works on all platforms? –
Ilocano env does not work as-is on all platforms, hence the reason for cross-env to exist. Just use cross-env and be done with it. –
Dorchester install script though, I am struggling with Playwright to set PLAYWRIGHT_SKIP_BROWSER_DOWNLOAD=1 before running the install of playwright package –
Garrard "preinstall": "export PLAYWRIGHT_SKIP_BROWSER_DOWNLOAD=1 || set PLAYWRIGHT_SKIP_BROWSER_DOWNLOAD=1" The difficulty is that during install, you have no package, and you cannot have an inline script, so you have to find a pure shell solution that works for Windows, in the preinstall command. –
Garrard Because I often find myself working with multiple environment variables, I find it useful to keep them in a separate .env file (make sure to ignore this from your source control). Then (in Linux) prepend export $(cat .env | xargs) && in your script command before starting your app.
Example .env file:
VAR_A=Hello World
VAR_B=format the .env file like this with new vars separated by a line break
Example index.js:
console.log('Test', process.env.VAR_A, process.env.VAR_B);
Example package.json:
{
...
"scripts": {
"start": "node index.js",
"env-linux": "export $(cat .env | xargs) && env",
"start-linux": "export $(cat .env | xargs) && npm start",
"env-windows": "(for /F \"tokens=*\" %i in (.env) do set %i)",
"start-windows": "(for /F \"tokens=*\" %i in (.env) do set %i) && npm start",
}
...
}
Unfortunately I can't seem to set the environment variables by calling a script from a script -- like "start-windows": "npm run env-windows && npm start" -- so there is some redundancy in the scripts.
For a test you can see the env variables by running npm run env-linux or npm run env-windows, and test that they make it into your app by running npm run start-linux or npm run start-windows.
&& for it to work - If you have multiple .env files, it may be a little harder to maintain Your answer inspired me to prepare this suggestion: #25113010 –
Ghirlandaio export $(cat .env | xargs) && set worked on Windows. I re-did the windows script, tested it out, and made edits to my answer. –
Shaddock export $(cat .env | xargs)&& instead of export $(cat .env | xargs) && to avoid an extra whitespace in the env variables. These spaces won't show up in console.log and can mess up the code(as it did mine) –
Protasis I just wanted to add my two cents here for future Node-explorers. On my Ubuntu 14.04 the NODE_ENV=test didn't work, I had to use export NODE_ENV=test after which NODE_ENV=test started working too, weird.
On Windows as have been said you have to use set NODE_ENV=test but for a cross-platform solution the cross-env library didn't seem to do the trick and do you really need a library to do this:
export NODE_ENV=test || set NODE_ENV=test&& yadda yadda
The vertical bars are needed as otherwise Windows would crash on the unrecognized export NODE_ENV command. I don't know about the trailing space, but just to be sure I removed them too.
&&? NODE_ENV=test yadda means "run yadda, setting NODE_ENV within yadda's environment variables. NODE_ENV=test && yadda means "set NODE_ENV within the local environment, but don't export it, then run yadda." NODE_ENV=test yadda is the preferred approach. –
Grayson NODE_ENV=test && npm run test or something similar. I made a better solution using process.env["NODE_ENV"] = "testing"; inside my testhelper.js file. –
Sande && you lost your environment variables, setting environment variables without export works on the current command only (which is nothing). to run the command with the env variable without exporting u do: NODE_ENV=test npm run test. Finally the reason it worked after you exported, is because ur variable is now available (exported) in the session, your NODE_ENV without export wasnt doing anything. –
Naoise export NODE_ENV=0 2>nul || set NODE_ENV=0 && export TRIAL_MODE=1 2>nul || set TRIAL_MODE=1 && echo "$NODE_ENV $TRIAL_MODE %NODE_ENV %TRIAL_MODE" Please remember that on Windows cmd env are available after executing statement, so they are not available in one line solutions. –
Ascidian Try this on Windows by replacing YOURENV:
{
...
"scripts": {
"help": "set NODE_ENV=YOURENV && tagove help",
"start": "set NODE_ENV=YOURENV && tagove start"
}
...
}
@luke's answer was almost the one I needed! Thanks.
As the selected answer is very straightforward (and correct), but old, I would like to offer an alternative for importing variables from a .env separate file when running your scripts and fixing some limitations to Luke's answer. Try this:
::: .env file :::
# This way, you CAN use comments in your .env files
NODE_PATH="src/"
# You can also have extra/empty lines in it
SASS_PATH="node_modules:src/styles"
Then, in your package json, you will create a script that will set the variables and run it before the scripts you need them:
::: package.json :::
scripts: {
"set-env": "export $(cat .env | grep \"^[^#;]\" |xargs)",
"storybook": "npm run set-env && start-storybook -s public"
}
The regular expression in the grep'ed cat command will clear the comments and empty lines.
The && don't need to be "glued" to npm run set-env, as it would be required if you were setting the variables in the same command.
If you are using yarn, you may see a warning, you can either change it to yarn set-env or use npm run set-env --scripts-prepend-node-path && instead.
Another advantage when using it is that you can have different environment variables.
scripts: {
"set-env:production": "export $(cat .production.env | grep \"^[^#;]\" |xargs)",
"set-env:development": "export $(cat .env | grep \"^[^#;]\" |xargs)",
}
Please, remember not to add .env files to your git repository when you have keys, passwords or sensitive/personal data in them!
export $(cat .env | grep \"^[^#;]\" |xargs) command works only if it is in the same script as my main script. This would work: export $(cat .env | grep \"^[^#;]\" |xargs) && docker exec -it ${MY_VARIABLE}_wp sh. But this won't: npm run set-env && docker exec -it ${MY_VARIABLE}_wp sh. –
Venlo export $(cat .env | egrep '^[^#]' | xargs) –
Aubervilliers For a larger set of environment variables or when you want to reuse them you can use env-cmd.
As a plus, the .env file would also work with direnv.
./.env file:
# This is a comment
ENV1=THANKS
ENV2=FOR ALL
ENV3=THE FISH
./package.json:
{
"scripts": {
"test": "env-cmd mocha -R spec"
}
}
process.env.ENV1 –
Amorphism mongod --dbpath ~/data/db. I want to run something like npm mongodb and that will get the environment variable dbpath and run the mondodb just as always... and.. i want to share it with other members. –
Boony yarnnpm (and yarn) passes a lot of data from package.json into scripts as environment variables. Use npm run env to see them all. This is documented in https://docs.npmjs.com/misc/scripts#environment and is not only for "lifecycle" scripts like prepublish but also any script executed by npm run.
You can access these inside code (e.g. process.env.npm_package_config_port in JS) but they're already available to the shell running the scripts so you can also access them as $npm_... expansions in the "scripts" (unix syntax, might not work on windows?).
The "config" section seems intended for this use:
"name": "myproject",
...
"config": {
"port": "8010"
},
"scripts": {
"start": "node server.js $npm_package_config_port",
"test": "wait-on http://localhost:$npm_package_config_port/ && node test.js http://localhost:$npm_package_config_port/"
}
An important quality of these "config" fields is that users can override them without modifying package.json!
$ npm run start
> [email protected] start /home/cben/mydir
> node server.js $npm_package_config_port
Serving on localhost:8010
$ npm config set myproject:port 8020
$ git diff package.json # no change!
$ cat ~/.npmrc
myproject:port=8020
$ npm run start
> [email protected] start /home/cben/mydir
> node server.js $npm_package_config_port
Serving on localhost:8020
See npm config and yarn config docs.
It appears that yarn reads ~/.npmrc so npm config set affects both, but yarn config set writes to ~/.yarnrc, so only yarn will see it :-(
$npm_package_* variables are no longer automatically placed in the environment since NPM v7, so this will probably break. –
Pullen When the NODE_ENV environment variable is set to 'production' all devDependencies in your package.json file will be completely ignored when running npm install. You can also enforce this with a --production flag:
npm install --production
For setting NODE_ENV you can use any of these methods
method 1: set NODE_ENV for all node apps
Windows :
set NODE_ENV=production
Linux, macOS or other unix based system :
export NODE_ENV=production
This sets NODE_ENV for current bash session thus any apps started after this statement will have NODE_ENV set to production.
method 2: set NODE_ENV for current app
NODE_ENV=production node app.js
This will set NODE_ENV for the current app only. This helps when we want to test our apps on different environments.
method 3: create .env file and use it
This uses the idea explained here. Refer this post for more detailed explanation.
Basically, you create a .env file and run some bash scripts to set them on the environment.
To avoid writing a bash script, the env-cmd package can be used to load the environment variables defined in the .env file.
env-cmd .env node app.js
method 4: Use cross-env package
This package allows environment variables to be set in one way for every platform.
After installing it with npm, you can just add it to your deployment script in package.json as follows:
"build:deploy": "cross-env NODE_ENV=production webpack"
This will work in Windows console:
"scripts": {
"setAndStart": "set TMP=test&& node index.js",
"otherScriptCmd": "echo %TMP%"
}
npm run aaa
output:
test
See this answer for details.
set TMP=test&& npm run bbb. The space before && will also cound as part of then NODE_ENV string –
Rabe ". –
Schlemiel &&. So "scripts": { "aaa": "set TMP=test&& npm run bbb", "bbb": "echo %TMP%" } –
Guenzi For single environment variable
"scripts": {
"start": "set NODE_ENV=production&& node server.js"
}
For multiple environment variables
"scripts": {
"start": "set NODE_ENV=production&& set PORT=8000&& node server.js"
}
suddenly i found that actionhero is using following code, that solved my problem by just passing --NODE_ENV=production in start script command option.
if(argv['NODE_ENV'] != null){
api.env = argv['NODE_ENV'];
} else if(process.env.NODE_ENV != null){
api.env = process.env.NODE_ENV;
}
i would really appreciate to accept answer of someone else who know more better way to set environment variables in package.json or init script or something like, where app bootstrapped by someone else.
use git bash in windows. Git Bash processes commands differently than cmd.
Most Windows command prompts will choke when you set environment variables with NODE_ENV=production like that. (The exception is Bash on Windows, which uses native Bash.) Similarly, there's a difference in how windows and POSIX commands utilize environment variables. With POSIX, you use: $ENV_VAR and on windows you use %ENV_VAR%. - cross-env doc
{
...
"scripts": {
"help": "tagove help",
"start": "env NODE_ENV=production tagove start"
}
...
}
use dotenv package to declare the env variables
Running a node.js script from package.json with multiple environment variables:
"scripts": {
"do-nothing": "set NODE_ENV=prod4 && set LOCAL_RUN=true && node ./x.js",
},x.js file can be as:
let env = process.env.NODE_ENV;
let isLocal = process.env.LOCAL_RUN;
console.log("ENV" , env);
console.log("isLocal", isLocal);{
...
"scripts": {
"start": "ENV NODE_ENV=production someapp --options"
}
...
}
Most elegant and portable solution:
package.json:
"scripts": {
"serve": "export NODE_PRESERVE_SYMLINKS_MAIN=1 && vue-cli-service serve"
},
Under windows create export.cmd and put it somewhere to your %PATH%:
@echo off
set %*
If you:
set ENV in your package.json which makes it only runnable for Windows dev machines;Then you can set the script shell of node from cmd to git bash and write linux-style env setting statements in package.json for it to work on both Windows/Linux/Mac.
$ npm config set script-shell "C:\\Program Files\\git\\bin\\bash.exe"
Although not directly answering the question I´d like to share an idea on top of the other answers. From what I got each of these would offer some level of complexity to achieve cross platform independency.
On my scenario all I wanted, originally, to set a variable to control whether or not to secure the server with JWT authentication (for development purposes)
After reading the answers I decided simply to create 2 different files, with authentication turned on and off respectively.
"scripts": {
"dev": "nodemon --debug index_auth.js",
"devna": "nodemon --debug index_no_auth.js",
}
The files are simply wrappers that call the original index.js file (which I renamed to appbootstrapper.js):
//index_no_auth.js authentication turned off
const bootstrapper = require('./appbootstrapper');
bootstrapper(false);
//index_auth.js authentication turned on
const bootstrapper = require('./appbootstrapper');
bootstrapper(true);
class AppBootStrapper {
init(useauth) {
//real initialization
}
}
Perhaps this can help someone else
You should not set ENV variables in package.json. actionhero uses NODE_ENV to allow you to change configuration options which are loaded from the files in ./config. Check out the redis config file, and see how NODE_ENV is uses to change database options in NODE_ENV=test
If you want to use other ENV variables to set things (perhaps the HTTP port), you still don't need to change anything in package.json. For example, if you set PORT=1234 in ENV and want to use that as the HTTP port in NODE_ENV=production, just reference that in the relevant config file, IE:
# in config/servers/web.js
exports.production = {
servers: {
web: function(api){
return {
port: process.env.PORT
}
}
}
}
NODE_ENV=test npm start or have them set by the shell –
Lothario In addition to use of cross-env as documented above, for setting a few environment variables within a package.json 'run script', if your script involves running NodeJS, then you can set Node to pre-require dotenv/config:
{
scripts: {
"eg:js": "node -r dotenv/config your-script.js",
"eg:ts": "ts-node -r dotenv/config your-script.ts",
"test": "ts-node -r dotenv/config -C 'console.log(process.env.PATH)'",
}
}
This will cause your node interpreter to require dotenv/config, which will itself read the .env file in the present working directory from which node was called.
The .env format is lax or liberal:
# Comments are permitted
FOO=123
BAR=${FOO}
BAZ=Basingstoke Round About
#Blank lines are no problem
Note : In order to set multiple environment variable, script should goes like this
"scripts": {
"start": "set NODE_ENV=production&& set MONGO_USER=your_DB_USER_NAME&& set MONGO_PASSWORD=DB_PASSWORD&& set MONGO_DEFAULT_DATABASE=DB_NAME&& node app.js",
},
Using crossenv is probably your best bet as already answered here.
You might want to try using the new Bun.sh for complex scripts. I've been able to clean up my package.json scripts a lot and I can even use typescript scripts. It's great.
bun run index.js
"scripts": {
"start": "bun run src/scripts/index.ts",
"dev": "bun run --watch src/scripts/index.ts",
"simple": "cross-env NODE_ENV=production start "
},
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