Dotenv Updater is a module that keeps your local, gitignored, .env files up to date with the latest variables defined in a dist/example file, like .env.example.

It compares your .env file with the .env.example (or other file specified in config), and if there any variables missing from your .env file it will interactively prompt you for their values on the command line, and update your .env file for you.

# with npm
npm install --save-dev @caxy/dotenv-updater

# or with Yarn
yarn add --dev @caxy/dotenv-updater

The primary use-case is to run this script alongside your other npm/Yarn scripts defined in your package.json.

For example, you can add calls to dotenv-updater at the beginning of your commonly run scripts, so that you can ensure you'll always have an up-to-date env file.

# in your package.json

"scripts": {
  "start": "dotenv-updater && node dist/index.js",
  "build": "dotenv-updater && ..."
},
...

You can also run it manually from the command line at the root of the project (or anywhere if installed globally):

dotenv-updater

You can add configuration in your package.json file to modify some of the default settings, which you will definitely want to do if your dist file is not named .env.example.

Below shows the configuration options available and their default values.

# in your package.json

{
  # ...

  "dotenvUpdater": {
    "envFile": ".env",
    "distFile": ".env.example",
    "checkExtraVars": true
  }
}