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gatsby-env-variables

Webpack feature to provide your custom environment variables in client side

Use `BUILD_ENV` to chose wich environment file to load and `THEME` to chose theme variables together

Install

$ npm i gatsby-env-variables

or

$ yarn add gatsby-env-variables

How to use

Add the plugin to your gatsby-config.js.

module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    `gatsby-env-variables`
  ]
}

Create your’s environment.js files inside env/ folder, on root of your project, file index.js will be the file with variables shared between multiple environments, if you chose other env, these variables will be merged

project/
├── env/
  ├── index.js
  ├── development.js
  ├── staging.js
  └── production.js

index.js

module.exports = {
  API_ROOT: "example.com",
  CARDS: "/cards",
}

staging.js

module.exports = {
  API_ROOT: "stg.example.com",
}

Run your yarn/npm script with BUILD_ENV variable to chose your environment, default selected is development

package.json

BUILD_ENV=staging yarn start

Use in client-side

Global variables

/* globals API_ROOT, CARDS */

function Example() {
  const cardsURL = API_ROOT + CARDS // stg.example.com/cards
  fetch(cardsURL)
}

If you don’t want to use /* globals */ in each file, just create an empty .eslintrc file in your project folder. If you are using eslint, just disable the no-undef rule.

Importing variables

import { API_ROOT, CARDS } from "gatsby-env-variables"

function Example() {
  const cardsURL = API_ROOT + CARDS // stg.example.com/cards
  fetch(cardsURL)
}

Using themes

You can have multiple themes, with multiple environments, just put your variables inside the name of theme, and use THEME=example on your running script

staging.js

module.exports = {
  API_ROOT: "stg.example.com",
  dark: {
    CARDS: "/dark_cards",
  }
}

package.json

THEME=dark BUILD_ENV=staging yarn start

Use in client-side

function Example() {
  const cardsURL = API_ROOT + CARDS // stg.example.com/dark_cards
  fetch(cardsURL)
}

Nested Objects

String values are not required, you can use nested objects too

staging.js

module.exports = {
  API: {
    CARDS: "/cards"
  }

  dark: {
    API_ROOT: "darkexample.com"
  }
}

Async variables

If you have to put dynamic variables in you environment, like values coming from API or something like this, you can export an promise

staging.js

module.exports = new Promise(async res => {
  const ROOT_API = "example.com"
  const CARDS = "/cards"

  const response = await fetch(ROOT_API + CARDS)
  const ACTIVE_CARDS = await response.json()

  const envs = {
    ROOT_API,
    CARDS,
    ACTIVE_CARDS,
    dark: {
      CARDS: "/dark_cards",
    },
    orange: {
      CARDS: "/orange_cards",
    },
  }

  res(envs)
}) 

Options

envFolderPath

This options allows you to specify which folder will stay your .env files

Example:

module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    {
      resolve: `gatsby-env-variables`,
      options: {
        envFolderPath: `src/env/`
      }
    }
  ]
}
project/
├── src/
  ├── env/
    ├── index.js
    ├── development.js
    ├── staging.js
    └── production.j

Or you can use this option to rename to config/ folder too

Example:

module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    {
      resolve: `gatsby-env-variables`,
      options: {
        envFolderPath: `config/`
      }
    }
  ]
}
project/
├── config/
  ├── index.js
  ├── development.js
  ├── staging.js
  └── production.jn

Further reading

Check out the DefinePlugin section of the Webpack config documentation for more information.

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