A dead simple module for storing and managing your environment variables in a simple and easy to read yaml file

Words: 567 - (3 min read)

Managing your environment variable in your different environments can be a pain. The idea behind envz is that this process is made super simple and easy to understand leading to less mistakes.

# with npm
npm install envz

# or with Yarn
yarn add envz

Repo: https://github.com/mrvautin/envz

Usage

You should use envz as early on in the entry point of your app as possible. Eg: app.js or index.js file which loads your app.

Rather than override process.env.x object, envz will return a new object to use throughout your app.

const { envz } = require('envz');

Create a env.yaml or any other named file and load it:

const env = envz('env.yaml');

env YAML file structure

The idea is that the process.env will be merged with loaded yaml file.

env uses a cascading (sequential order) configuration method which is easier to understand looking at an example.

base:
  PORT: 1234
  config:
    default: test

development:
  PORT: 3000
  DATABASE: dev
  config:
    token: 12345
    secret: fwdsdgl

production:
  PORT: 80
  DATABASE: prod
  config:
    token: 67890
    key: puwndklf
    truthy: true
    allowed:
      - card
      - phone

The idea here is that the values in base are loaded, anything in development overrides that and finally production overrides that depending on the NODE_ENV set.

For example, when a NODE_ENV of development is set the following env object is returned:

PORT: 3000,
config: { 
    default: 'test', 
    token: 12345, 
    secret: 'fwdsdgl' 
},
DATABASE: 'dev'
...

Eg: Where the PORT of 3000 from development overrides the base setting of 1234. If the NODE_ENV is set to production, then the PORT will be set to 80.

The idea behind base (or whatever you want to call it) is that you don't need to redefine defaults over and over for each environment.

Options

You can set the environment manually rather than using NODE_ENV by adding an environment object. Eg:

const env = envz('env.yaml', { environment: 'production' });

By default the values set in process.env overrides what is set in your yaml file. You can change this so that the yaml file is king by adding the following flag:

const env = envz('env.yaml', { yamlFileOverride: true });

Save / Update config

Sometimes you may want to store changes back to your envz config. You can easily do this by importing save:

const { save } = require('envz');

The save method takes an object with two values:

• envfile: The yaml file you are wanting to update
• data: The object you want to update back to the file. See tests and example below.

// In this case we will be adding to the `base` config but you can easily
// replace `base` with `production` or whatever environment.
const saveObj = await save({
    envfile: 'test.yaml',
    data: {
      base: {
        config: {
            default: 'default-key'
        }
      }
    }
});

This will result in the test.yaml being updated:

base:
  PORT: 1234
  config:
    default: default-key
...