We are working on nodeJs/ExpressJs we have configured multiple .env files for development and production and pointing it to package.json for different execution process, we have naming conversation issues at scripts.
Whenever we run npm run prod it takes to preprod configuration. what could be the issues?
Update: we have figured that the suffix of the script key is the same in the next script, after update/rename preprod to preProd the both runs fine. but why?
Eg :
"scripts": {
"dev": "clear; env-cmd -f ./config/hostedDev.env nodemon --exec babel-node index.js",
"prod": "clear; env-cmd -f ./config/prod.env nodemon --exec babel-node index.js",
"preprod": "clear; env-cmd -f ./config/preprod.env nodemon --exec babel-node index.js"
},
Apparently the issue is with the word 'pre'.
If you would have noticed it runs both preprod and prod commands (pre running first).
If you change the script name to 'postprod' the postprod script will run later.
So, I guess npm uses 'pre' as to run before the 'prod' script and then running 'prod' script itself.
Node.js in windows system can be set environmental before the server is started, like this:
set NODE_ENV=production
That NODE_ENV parameter can be using in node.js or electron by process.env.NODE_ENV.
But when I builder electron by electron-builder, like this:
electron-builder build --windows
How do I set the environmental variables?
Update:
May be cannot pass a fixed environment variable to an executable by electron-builder.
Maybe you can only manually load an environment file, modify it when you package it, or preset the parameters to the dev state. When there is no state, it is production.
If you want an environment variable to be set on runtime you can either set them manually or use other tools like dotenv https://www.npmjs.com/package/dotenv
But the easiest way is to set them at runtime when running the binaries. You can use either a batch script (If windows) for example:
setlocal
set NODE_ENV=production
.\your-binaries.exe
endlocal
Note: setlocal prevents the variable leaking any further.
The one-liner version could be set NODE_ENV=production && .\binaries.exe
Under linux works the same way: set variable then run.
I'm posting this in the hopes that it helps other people in my situation. I have three environments (development, staging, and production), and I wanted my Electron main process to be aware of which environment it was running on.
Now, for development it's quite easy to expose an environment variable to Electron inline using the CLI:
export NODE_ENV=development && electron desktop/main.js
Then, Electron's main process can access this environment variable like so:
const isDev = process.env.NODE_ENV === 'development';
However, being able to distinguish between the staging and production environments was slightly trickier. My staging and production environments are both packaged and deployed using electron-builder, with package.json scripts like so:
"desktop-build": "webpack --config config/webpack/webpack.prod.js && electron-builder --config config/electron.config.js",
"desktop-build-staging": "webpack --config config/webpack/webpack.staging.js && electron-builder --config config/electron.config.js",
NOTE: The webpack configs above expose configs to the renderer process (website), but not the main process.
So my solution to expose the environment to the Electron main process for staging and production was as follows:
Set NODE_ENV=staging or NODE_ENV=production to electron-builder via command line invocation:
# Production
export NODE_ENV=production && webpack --config config/webpack/webpack.prod.js && electron-builder --config config/electron.config.js
# Staging
export NODE_ENV=staging && webpack --config config/webpack/webpack.staging.js && electron-builder --config config/electron.config.js
In my electron.config.js file (configs for electron-builder) use the extraMetadata parameter (docs) to inject a variable into my package.json:
extraMetadata: {
isProduction: Boolean(process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production'),
},
Then you can access that from your Electron main process:
// This variable is injected into package.json by electron-builder via the extraMetadata field (specified in electron.config.js)
const {isProduction} = Boolean(require('./package.json'));
I have this node app deployed and runs fine with NODE_ENV=production yarn start.
I can demonize the app using
pm2 start npm -- start
but then it defaults to NODE_ENV=development config.
And when I use
pm2 start npm -- start NODE_ENV=production
It still starts with development config.
Also I tried passing the env using a process.yml file
apps:
- script : index.js
watch: true
instances: 4
env :
NODE_ENV: production
but pm2 start npm -- start process.yml still loads the development configs.
How can I fix this?
The reason you might be facing this is because you would have started pm2 with development once. Now it will use that env until you kill it. Following these steps should help
./node_modules/.bin/pm2 kill
NODE_ENV=production ./node_modules/.bin/pm2 start server.js
You can also use --update-env. From the official docs
By default we want that PM2 doesn’t change process environment while
restarting or reloading so they are immutable. If you want to update
them, you must use --update-env :
try this:
export NODE_ENV=production&&pm2 start server.js
export NODE_ENV=production && pm2 start ecosystem.config.js
Following line helped me! Thanks to #mehdi parastar and #abhinavd
Try this, if you are using a pm2, the below code works for me
sudo NODE_ENV=production pm2 start app.js
You can solve it using this command (with double quotes):
sudo pm2 start "NODE_ENV=production yarn start"
You just do it like this ->
NODE_ENV=production pm2 restart <id|name> --update-env
You can check the docs here:
PM2 - Update Env Variables docs
I would like to use $>npm start and have it use "nodemon" for development and "node" for production. I can't put conditional logic in my package.json file, so how is this best accomplished?
You should be able to use NPM's start as a regular shell script.
"scripts": {
"start": "if [$NODE_ENV == 'production']; then node app.js; else nodemon app.js; fi"
}
Now to start your server for production
$ NODE_ENV='production' npm start
or for development
$ NODE_ENV='development' npm start
nodemon actually reads the package.start value, so if you just set the start property to what you'd have in production, like node app.js, then run nodemon without any arguments, it'll run with package.start and restart as you'd expect in development.
Instead of putting logic in your "start", just add another script like "start-dev":"nodemon app.js" and execute it like "npm run-script start-dev".
I liked Daniel's solution, but thought it would be even cleaner to put it in a separate file, startup.sh:
#!/bin/sh
if [ "$NODE_ENV" = "production" ]; then
node src/index.js;
else
nodemon src/index.js;
fi
Then just change package.json to read:
"scripts": {
"start": "../startup.sh"
},
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.
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
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.
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.
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"
}
Some observations:
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.
Different environments
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!
UPDATE: This solution may break in npm v7 due to npm RFC 21
CAVEAT: no idea if this works with yarn
npm (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
> myproject#0.0.0 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
> myproject#0.0.0 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 :-(
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"
}
}
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.
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
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"
}
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"
{
...
"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:
Are currently using Windows;
Have git bash installed;
Don't want to use 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
Running a node.js script from package.json with multiple environment variables:
package.json file:
"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);
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
}
}
}
}
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",
},