README.md

# dotenv

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](https://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=(... dotenv)
```

## Usage

Create `.env` file inside your project root directory and put your ENV variables there.

For example:
```sh
export AWS_S3_TOKEN=d84a83539134f28f412c652b09f9f98eff96c9a
export SECRET_KEY=7c6c72d959416d5aa368a409362ec6e2ac90d7f
export MONGO_URI=mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017
export PORT=3001
```
`export` is optional. This format works as well:
```sh
AWS_S3_TOKEN=d84a83539134f28f412c652b09f9f98eff96c9a
SECRET_KEY=7c6c72d959416d5aa368a409362ec6e2ac90d7f
MONGO_URI=mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017
PORT=3001
```
You can even mix both formats, although it's probably a bad idea.

### ZSH_DOTENV_FILE

You can also modify the name of the file to be loaded with the variable `ZSH_DOTENV_FILE`.
If the variable isn't set, the plugin will default to use `.env`.
For example, this will make the plugin look for files named `.dotenv` and load them:

```
# in ~/.zshrc, before Oh My Zsh is sourced:
ZSH_DOTENV_FILE=.dotenv
```

## 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:
* [direnv](https://github.com/direnv/direnv)
* [zsh-autoenv](https://github.com/Tarrasch/zsh-autoenv)