direnv on Windows

Overview

In JavaScript projects, I used to use dotenv so that I could put local environment variables in a .env file for local development. But dotenv requires you to add code to your project. With direnv, you can put local env vars in a .envrc file and those env vars are loaded automatically in the shell.

Steps to install

For these steps, it is assummed that you have installed Git Bash on Windows. I also use VSCode as my editor.

1. Create a folder such as c:\tools to put the direnv.exe file and add it to the Windows PATH
2. Go to https://github.com/direnv/direnv/releases to find the latest release of direnv.
3. Click on direnv.windows-amd64.exe to download the file
4. Copy the file to c:\tools and rename to direnv.exe
5. Open the Git Bash terminal and execute $ echo ~ to find the location in Windows of the user's home directory
6. If a .bashrc file doesn't exist in the user's home directory, create one
7. Follow the instructions at https://direnv.net/docs/hook.html#bash and add the following text to .bashrc: eval "$(direnv hook bash)"
8. In your node project directory, create a file: .envrc with key and values as follows:

export KEY1=value1
export KEY2="value2"

1. From a Git Bash terminal open to the same location as the .envrc file, enter the command: direnv allow

$ direnv allow
direnv: loading /c/dev/myproject/.envrc
direnv: export +KEY1 +KEY2

1. To test that the values are loaded:

$ echo $KEY1
value1

$ echo $KEY2
value2

NOTE: after a change to the .envrc, you must again execute direnv allow