NodeJS environment variables undefined

Question

I'm trying to create some envrioment variables but when I create the file and run the server the seem to be undefined. I'm using nodemon. I have restarted my server and no luck.

UPDATED

.env

MONGO_ATLAS_PW = "xxxx";
JWT_KEY = "secret_this_should_be_longer";

package.json

...
  "scripts": {
    ...
    "start:server": "nodemon ./server/server.js"
  }

app.js

 require('dotenv').config();
 ...
 console.log(process.env.JWT_KEY); //undefined 

Answer 1

I believe the nodemon.json file is only for setting nodemon specific configuration. If you look at the nodemon docs for a sample nodemon.json file, the only env variable they mention setting is NODE_ENV.

Have you considered putting these environment variables for your app in a .env file instead? There is a package called dotenv that is helpful for managing env variables in Node.

First, install dotenv using the command npm install dotenv

Then, create a file called .env in the root directory with the following:

MONGO_ATLAS_PW=xxxxx
JWT_KEY=secret_this_should_be_longer

Finally, inside your app.js file after your imports add the following line:

require('dotenv').config()

Answer 2

I believe you're referring to the dotenv package. To configure it, first create a file called .env with your keys and values stored like so:

MONGO_ATLAS_PW=xxxxx
JWT_KEY=secret_this_should_be_longer

Then, in your server.js, add this near the top:

require("dotenv").config();

Then the process.env variable will be an object containing the values in .env.

Answer 3

This needed to be in the root directory of my project.

nodemon.json

{
  "env": {
    "MONGO_ATLAS_PW": "xxxx",
    "JWT_KEY": "secret_this_should_be_longer"
  }
}