dotenv
Dotenv loads environment variables from .env
into ENV
.
Storing configuration in the environment is one of the tenets of a twelve-factor app. Anything that is likely to change between deployment environments–such as resource handles for databases or credentials for external services–should be extracted from the code into environment variables.
But it is not always practical to set environment variables on development machines or continuous integration servers where multiple projects are run. Dotenv load variables from a .env
file into ENV
when the environment is bootstrapped.
Installation
Rails
Add this line to the top of your application's Gemfile:
gem 'dotenv-rails', :groups => [:development, :test]
And then execute:
$ bundle
It should be listed in the Gemfile before any other gems that use environment variables, otherwise those gems will get initialized with the wrong values.
Sinatra or Plain ol' Ruby
Install the gem:
$ gem install dotenv
As early as possible in your application bootstrap process, load .env
:
require 'dotenv'
Dotenv.load
Alternatively, you can use the dotenv
executable to launch your application:
$ dotenv ./script.py
To ensure .env
is loaded in rake, load the tasks:
require 'dotenv/tasks'
task :mytask => :dotenv do
# things that require .env
end
Usage
Add your application configuration to your .env
file in the root of your project:
S3_BUCKET=YOURS3BUCKET
SECRET_KEY=YOURSECRETKEYGOESHERE
You can also create files per environment, such as .env.test
.
S3_BUCKET=tests3bucket
SECRET_KEY=testsecretkey
An alternate yaml-like syntax is supported:
S3_BUCKET: yamlstyleforyours3bucket
SECRET_KEY: thisisalsoanokaysecret
Whenever your application loads, these variables will be available in ENV
:
config.fog_directory = ENV['S3_BUCKET']
Capistrano integration
If you want to use Dotenv with Capistrano in your production environment, make sure the dotenv gem is included in your Gemfile :production
group.
Capistrano version 2.x.x
Add the gem to your config/deploy.rb
file:
require "dotenv/capistrano"
It will symlink the .env
located in /path/to/shared
in the new release.
Capistrano version 3.x.x
Just add .env
to the list of linked files, for example:
set :linked_files, %w{config/database.yml .env}
Should I commit my .env file?
It is recommended that you store development-only settings in your .env
file, and commit it to your repository. Make sure that all your credentials for your development environment are different from your other deployments. This makes it easy for other developers to get started on your project, without compromising your credentials for other environments.
Contributing
- Fork it
- Create your feature branch (
git checkout -b my-new-feature
) - Commit your changes (
git commit -am 'Added some feature'
) - Push to the branch (
git push origin my-new-feature
) - Create new Pull Request