.env files in Github Actions CI/CD workflows: how to provide these into the workflow

Question

I use Github Actions workflows for my CI/CD processes for Node and PHP projects.

Within a workflow I clone my repository into Github Actions runner virtual machine. Then in order to run tests within a workflow I have to have the .env file in the cloned repository.

The problem is my .env file is not a part of repository (which is the ubuquitous practice).

To solve the problem I use what I consider a workaround: set up MY_PROJECT_ENV Github Action sercret variable, manually put there the content of my .env file and then dynamically create the .env file within my workflow with Linux console echo "${{ secrets.MY_PROJECT_ENV}}" > .env. This works.

But I would like to know are there other approaches for providing .env files to Github Actions workflows?

Answer 1

There are 3 ways to do this I know by now. I put the answer to my own question a year after in the different question. See there.

For the sake of SO rules and findablity I put here a summary.

1. You keep your .env file in the repository. Use dotenv actions to read your file into the workflow.

2. You keep the file out of the repository. Then you have 2 ways of getting .env variables:

   2.1. as I wrote in my question above manually copy the file content to the GitHub actions secret variable and then in your workflow create the .env file from that variable.

   2.2. Use the GitHub Actions API to create/update the secrets: write the NodeJS script on your machine (chances are you anyway use Webpack, Gulp or the like Node thing so you have Node installed).

   The script should read the local .env files and write their content to the GH secrets. Of course you can write a custom console utilty to do this with any language you use in your project.

As easy as this :)