Automatically load your project ENV variables from `.env` file when you `cd` into project root directory.
Storing configuration in the environment is one of the tenets of a [twelve-factor app](http://www.12factor.net). Anything that is likely to change between deployment environments–such as resource handles for databases or credentials for external services–should be extracted from the code into environment variables.
Storing configuration in the environment is one of the tenets of a [twelve-factor app](http://www.12factor.net). Anything that is likely to change between deployment environments, such as resource handles for databases or credentials for external services, should be extracted from the code into environment variables.
## Installation
Just add the plugin to your `.zshrc`:
```sh
plugins=(git man dotenv)
plugins=(... dotenv)
```
## Usage
Create `.env` file inside your project directory and put your local ENV variables there.
Create `.env` file inside your project root directory and put your ENV variables there.
You can even mix both formats, although it's probably a bad idea.
**It's strongly recommended to add `.env` file to `.gitignore`**, because usually it contains sensitive information such as your credentials, secret keys, passwords etc. You don't want to commit this file, it supposed to be local only.
## Version Control
**It's strongly recommended to add `.env` file to `.gitignore`**, because usually it contains sensitive information such as your credentials, secret keys, passwords etc. You don't want to commit this file, it's supposed to be local only.
## Disclaimer
This plugin only sources the `.env` file. Nothing less, nothing more. It doesn't do any checks. It's designed to be the fastest and simplest option. You're responsible for the `.env` file content. You can put some code (or weird symbols) there, but do it on your own risk. `dotenv` is the basic tool, yet it does the job.
If you need more advanced and feature-rich ENV management, check out these awesome projects:
