Using Environment Variables with Vue.js

Question

I've been reading the official docs and I'm unable to find anything on environment variables. Apparently there are some community projects that support environment variables but this might be overkill for me. So I was wondering if there's something simple out of the box that works natively when working on a project already created with Vue CLI.

For example, I can see that if I do the following the right environment prints out meaning this is already setup?

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

I'm a kinda new to env variables and Node.

FYI using Vue CLI version 3.0 beta.

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

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

Answer 4

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.

Answer 5

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'"
      }
    })
  ]);

}

Answer 6

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)
                }
            })
        ]
    }
};

Answer 7

In vue-cli version 3:

There are the three options for .env files: Either you can use .env or:

• .env.test
• .env.development
• .env.production

You can use custom .env variables by using the prefix regex as /^/ instead of /^VUE_APP_/ in /node_modules/@vue/cli-service/lib/util/resolveClientEnv.js:prefixRE

This is certainly not recommended for the sake of developing an open source app in different modes like test, development, and production of .env files. Because every time you npm install .. , it will be overridden.

Answer 8

In addition to the previous answers, if you're looking to access VUE_APP_* env variables in your sass (either the sass section of a vue component or a scss file), then you can add the following to your vue.config.js (which you may need to create if you don't have one):

let sav = "";
for (let e in process.env) {
    if (/VUE_APP_/i.test(e)) {
        sav += `$${e}: "${process.env[e]}";`;
    }
}

module.exports = {
    css: {
        loaderOptions: {
            sass: {
                data: sav,
            },
        },
    },
}

The string sav seems to be prepended to every sass file that before processing, which is fine for variables. You could also import mixins at this stage to make them available for the sass section of each vue component.

You can then use these variables in your sass section of a vue file:

<style lang="scss">
.MyDiv {
    margin: 1em 0 0 0;
    background-image: url($VUE_APP_CDN+"/MyImg.png");
}
</style>

or in a .scss file:

.MyDiv {
    margin: 1em 0 0 0;
    background-image: url($VUE_APP_CDN+"/MyImg.png");
}

from https://www.matt-helps.com/post/expose-env-variables-vue-cli-sass/

Answer 9

Important (in Vue 4 and likely Vue 3+ as well!): I set VUE_APP_VAR but could NOT see it by console logging process and opening the env object. I could see it by logging or referencing process.env.VUE_APP_VAR. I'm not sure why this is but be aware that you have to access the variable directly!

Answer 10

For those using Vue CLI 3 and the webpack-simple install, Aaron's answer did work for me however I wasn't keen on adding my environment variables to my webpack.config.js as I wanted to commit it to GitHub. Instead I installed the dotenv-webpack plugin and this appears to load environment variables fine from a .env file at the root of the project without the need to prepend VUE_APP_ to the environment variables.