npm scripts: read .env file

Let's say you have a .env file like this:

DOMAIN="https://tld.com"

Then, you can use source in your command, like so:

{
    // ...
    "scripts": {
        "example": "source .env && some-lib --argument --domain $DOMAIN"
    }
}

This won't work in Windows by default, but if you have Git Bash installed, then you can configure npm to use it to run commands with e.g. (from here):

npm config set script-shell "C:\\Program Files\\git\\bin\\bash.exe"

Short answer: There's no terse way to achieve this that works cross-platform, as per your second example which references the $npm_package_config variable.

For a cross-platform solution, i.e. one that works successfully on both *nix and Windows platforms - whereby the default shell utilized by npm scripts is either sh or cmd respectively, you'll need to execute your command (i.e. the one which is currently defined in your npm-script) via a nodejs helper script. Essentially, your nodejs script will need to:

• Utilize the dotenv package to load the .env file.
• Execute the command using the nodejs built-in module; child_process.exec() or child_process.execSync().

The nodejs helper script can then be invoked via your npm-script.

The following describes how to achieve a solution that runs cross-platform.

Solution

1. The .env file

Firstly, lets assume we have a .env file residing in the root of our project directory. The .env file contains the following entry:

DOMAIN=https://tld.com

2. Install

The following nodejs script utilizes the dotenv package to load the environment variable(s) from the .env file. We'll need to install it. To do this cd to your project directory and run the following command:

npm i -D dotenv

3. The Node.js script (some-lib-cmd.js)

Next create a nodejs script as follows. Let's name the file some-lib-cmd.js and save it in the root of the project directory:

// Requirements...
require('dotenv').config();
const execSync = require('child_process').execSync;
const path = require("path");

/**
 * Creates a path to an executable in the node_modules/.bin directory. Each
 * path segment is joined with the appropriate platform-specific separator as
 * a delimiter.
 * @param {String} cmd The name of the executable.
 * @returns {String} The path to the executable.
 */
function getBinFile(cmd) {
  return path.join('node_modules', '.bin', cmd);
}

// Execute the command...
execSync(`${getBinFile('some-lib')} --argument --domain ${process.env.DOMAIN}`, { stdio: [0, 1, 2] });

Notes:

• If your .env file does not reside in the root of our project directory along with some-lib-cmd.js, then you can utilize dotenv's path option to define a custom path to the location of your .env file instead. For example:

  require('dotenv').config({ path: 'path/to/another/folder/' })
  

• To reference the DOMAIN variable from within the nodejs script we utilize process.env, i.e. process.env.DOMAIN.

4. package.json

In the scripts section of your package.json define the following script:

"scripts": {
  "example": "node some-lib-cmd"
}

Note: If you have chosen to save some-lib-cmd.js elsewhere, i.e. not in the in the root of your project directory, then redefine the path in your example script as necessary. For instance:

"scripts": {
  "example": "node path/to/some/folder/some-lib-cmd"
}

There is a library that does exactly what you want to follow 12factor app best practices: the dotenv package from npmjs.org

https://www.npmjs.com/package/dotenv

FTA:

$ node -r dotenv/config your_script.js dotenv_config_path=/custom/path/to/your/env/vars

Surprised no one mentioned the 'ol tried and true DirEnv to auto setup environment for your current working directory. That way env is private to your local machine and available to all your scripts including inside the code base. It comes in handy for things that won't look at a .env file by default.

I use this all over my machine not just in development projects.

Def worth checking out! Direnv

dotenv-cli has a great solution for this (as well as good explanation for the problem):

If your .env file looks like:

SAY_HI=hello!

you might expect dotenv echo "$SAY_HI" to display hello!. In fact, this is not what happens: your shell will first interpret your command before passing it to dotenv-cli, so if SAY_HI envvar is set to "", the command will be expanded into dotenv echo: that's why dotenv-cli cannot make the expansion you expect.

They give a workaround:

.env:

npm_package_config_domain=https://tld.com

package.json:

    "scripts": {
        "_example": "some-lib --argument --domain \"$npm_package_config_domain\"",
        "example": "dotenv -- npm run _example"
    }

A new `process.loadEnvFile` function was (relatively) recently added to nodejs (https://nodejs.org/docs/v24.5.0/api/process.html#processloadenvfilepath)

If you can modify the script that you want to run, you can add:

process.loadEnvFile(".env");

And that will load your environment variables from the .env file into your `process.env `.

You can also create a wrapper script as mentioned by @RobC using this to load the .env file instead.

Even easier, more recent and also safer (according to the severe security warnings I got from installing dotenv in npm) than the dotenv package. :)