Enput

dotenv file generator from schema and user input.

Do you copy and rewrite the .env file when you prepare the environment for your project? Enput generates an .env file by answering a minimum of questions.

• You can create an environment simply by answering questions.
• You can define the schemes of the environment variables.
• You can set environment variables without omissions.

Usage

Enput runs on Node.js. Installation is not required.

First prepare an .env.example file; Enput will generate an .env file from it.

Then type the following command.

npx enput

All that remains is to enter the environment variables according to what appears on the console screen.

Congratulations👏 An .env file has been generated.

If .env.example is updated in the future and new environment variables are added, type the same command again. Add the missing environment variables to the .env file.

Schemas

Add a comment in front of each environment variable in the .env.example file. The number of # is not important, although ## is used here to improve readability.

##
# Node execution environment
# @type select
# @options local,development,staging,production
##
NODE_ENV=production

@type followed by the type of the environment variable. In this case, NODE_ENV will be the item from which to choose.

Types

All types are here.

• string
• secret
• email
• url
• date
• datetime
• ip
• number
• int
• boolean
• select
• list

Tags

All tags are here.

Tag
@type	Type of the environment variable. Default is string.
@copy	Skip user input and copy the default value verbatim.
@min	Minimum value (minimum number of characters for strings).
@max	Maximum value (maximum number of characters for strings).
@length	Fixed number of characters in the value
@pattern	Regular expression pattern for the value
@multiple	Allows multiple selections when of type select.
@options	Options for type select.

Command

It can also be installed.

npm install -g enput

See help for command usage.

> enput -h
Usage: enput [options] [vars...]

Generate or update a .env file from .env.example and user input.

Arguments:
  vars                       filtering and setting environment variables

  Examples:
    filter                     enput NODE_ENV PORT
    set value                  enput NODE_ENV=production
    set empty value            enput NODE_ENV=
    set value with space       enput MESSAGE='Hello world'

Options:
  -v, --version              output the version number
  -m, --mode <mode>          if given, adds a suffix to the .env filename
  -e, --env <envFile>        .env file name (default: ".env")
  -s, --schema <schemaFile>  schema file name (default: ".env.example")
  -f, --force                disable verification
  -u, --update               check each schema for updates
  -q, --quiet                hide information
  -h, --help                 display help for command