Using Environment Variables with Vue.js

Question

If you use vue cli with the Webpack template (default config), you can create and add your environment variables to a .env file.

The variables will automatically be accessible under process.env.variableName in your project. Loaded variables are also available to all vue-cli-service commands, plugins and dependencies.

You have a few options, this is from the Environment Variables and Modes documentation:

.env                # loaded in all cases
.env.local          # loaded in all cases, ignored by git
.env.[mode]         # only loaded in specified mode
.env.[mode].local   # only loaded in specified mode, ignored by git

Your .env file should look like this:

VUE_APP_MY_ENV_VARIABLE=value
VUE_APP_ANOTHER_VARIABLE=value

It is my understanding that all you need to do is create the .env file and add your variables then you're ready to go! :)

As noted in comment below: If you are using Vue cli 3, only variables that start with VUE_APP_ will be loaded.

Don't forget to restart serve if it is currently running.

If you are using Vue cli 3, only variables that start with VUE_APP_ will be loaded.

In the root create a .env file with:

VUE_APP_ENV_VARIABLE=value

And, if it's running, you need to restart serve so that the new env vars can be loaded.

With this, you will be able to use process.env.VUE_APP_ENV_VARIABLE in your project (.js and .vue files).

Update

According to @ali6p, with Vue Cli 3, isn't necessary to install dotenv dependency.

1. Create two files in root folder (near by package.json) .env and .env.production
2. Add variables to theese files with prefix VUE_APP_ eg: VUE_APP_WHATEVERYOUWANT
3. serve uses .env and build uses .env.production
4. In your components (vue or js), use process.env.VUE_APP_WHATEVERYOUWANT to call value
5. Don't forget to restart serve if it is currently running
6. Clear browser cache

Be sure you are using vue-cli version 3 or above

For more information: https://cli.vuejs.org/guide/mode-and-env.html

In the root of your project create your environment files:

• .env
• .env.someEnvironment1
• .env.SomeEnvironment2

To then load those configs, you would specify the environment via mode i.e.

npm run serve --mode development //default mode
npm run serve --mode someEnvironment1

In your env files you simply declare the config as key-value pairs, but if you're using vue 3, you must prefix with VUE_APP_:

In your .env:

VUE_APP_TITLE=This will get overwritten if more specific available

.env.someEnvironment1:

VUE_APP_TITLE=My App (someEnvironment1)

You can then use this in any of your components via:

myComponent.vue:

<template>
  <div> 
    {{title}}
  </div>
</template>

<script>
export default {
  name: "MyComponent",
  data() {
    return {
      title: process.env.VUE_APP_TITLE
    };
  }
};
</script>

Now if you ran the app without a mode it will show the 'This will get...' but if you specify a someEnvironment1 as your mode then you will get the title from there.

You can create configs that are 'hidden' from git by appending .local to your file: .env.someEnvironment1.local - very useful for when you have secrets.

Read the docs for more info.

A problem I was running into was that I was using the webpack-simple install for VueJS which didn't seem to include an Environment variable config folder. So I wasn't able to edit the env.test,development, and production.js config files. Creating them didn't help either.

Other answers weren't detailed enough for me, so I just "fiddled" with webpack.config.js. And the following worked just fine.

So to get Environment Variables to work, the webpack.config.js should have the following at the bottom:

if (process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production') {
  module.exports.devtool = '#source-map'
  // http://vue-loader.vuejs.org/en/workflow/production.html
  module.exports.plugins = (module.exports.plugins || []).concat([
    new webpack.DefinePlugin({
      'process.env': {
        NODE_ENV: '"production"'
      }
    }),
    new webpack.optimize.UglifyJsPlugin({
      sourceMap: true,
      compress: {
        warnings: false
      }
    }),
    new webpack.LoaderOptionsPlugin({
      minimize: true
    })
  ])
}

Based on the above, in production, you would be able to get the NODE_ENV variable

mounted() {
  console.log(process.env.NODE_ENV)
}

Now there may be better ways to do this, but if you want to use Environment Variables in Development you would do something like the following:

if (process.env.NODE_ENV === 'development') {

  module.exports.plugins = (module.exports.plugins || []).concat([
    new webpack.DefinePlugin({
      'process.env': {
        NODE_ENV: '"development"'
      }
    })
  ]);

} 

Now if you want to add other variables with would be as simple as:

if (process.env.NODE_ENV === 'development') {

  module.exports.plugins = (module.exports.plugins || []).concat([
    new webpack.DefinePlugin({
      'process.env': {
        NODE_ENV: '"development"',
        ENDPOINT: '"http://localhost:3000"',
        FOO: "'BAR'"
      }
    })
  ]);
}

I should also note that you seem to need the "''" double quotes for some reason.

So, in Development, I can now access these Environment Variables:

mounted() {
  console.log(process.env.ENDPOINT)
  console.log(process.env.FOO)
}

Here is the whole webpack.config.js just for some context:

var path = require('path')
var webpack = require('webpack')

module.exports = {
  entry: './src/main.js',
  output: {
    path: path.resolve(__dirname, './dist'),
    publicPath: '/dist/',
    filename: 'build.js'
  },
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.css$/,
        use: [
          'vue-style-loader',
          'css-loader'
        ],
      },      {
        test: /\.vue$/,
        loader: 'vue-loader',
        options: {
          loaders: {
          }
          // other vue-loader options go here
        }
      },
      {
        test: /\.js$/,
        loader: 'babel-loader',
        exclude: /node_modules/
      },
      {
        test: /\.(png|jpg|gif|svg)$/,
        loader: 'file-loader',
        options: {
          name: '[name].[ext]?[hash]'
        }
      }
    ]
  },
  resolve: {
    alias: {
      'vue$': 'vue/dist/vue.esm.js'
    },
    extensions: ['*', '.js', '.vue', '.json']
  },
  devServer: {
    historyApiFallback: true,
    noInfo: true,
    overlay: true
  },
  performance: {
    hints: false
  },
  devtool: '#eval-source-map'
}

if (process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production') {
  module.exports.devtool = '#source-map'
  // http://vue-loader.vuejs.org/en/workflow/production.html
  module.exports.plugins = (module.exports.plugins || []).concat([
    new webpack.DefinePlugin({
      'process.env': {
        NODE_ENV: '"production"'
      }
    }),
    new webpack.optimize.UglifyJsPlugin({
      sourceMap: true,
      compress: {
        warnings: false
      }
    }),
    new webpack.LoaderOptionsPlugin({
      minimize: true
    })
  ])
}

if (process.env.NODE_ENV === 'development') {

  module.exports.plugins = (module.exports.plugins || []).concat([
    new webpack.DefinePlugin({
      'process.env': {
        NODE_ENV: '"development"',
        ENDPOINT: '"http://localhost:3000"',
        FOO: "'BAR'"
      }
    })
  ]);

}

This is how I edited my vue.config.js so that I could expose NODE_ENV to the frontend (I'm using Vue-CLI):

vue.config.js

const webpack = require('webpack');

// options: https://github.com/vuejs/vue-cli/blob/dev/docs/config.md
module.exports = {
    // default baseUrl of '/' won't resolve properly when app js is being served from non-root location
    baseUrl: './',
    outputDir: 'dist',
    configureWebpack: {
        plugins: [
            new webpack.DefinePlugin({
                // allow access to process.env from within the vue app
                'process.env': {
                    NODE_ENV: JSON.stringify(process.env.NODE_ENV)
                }
            })
        ]
    }
};