Is there a way to build the application in development mode so that dotenv files are copied to dist/pre-start?

[umbe1987]

First of all, many thanks for this neat project! :)

I am trying to figure out how to create a script in the package.json file so that when building the application in a local environment the dotenv files in src/pre-start are automatically copied to the respective dist folder.

The reason is that my project has a frontend and a backend part.

The frontend is usually built into the dist/public folder of the express app, and then it is served by the backend.

However, I would like to access different environment variables defined in my development.env file, but I cannot do it right now since the only one present is apparently only production.env.

I guess it is normal behavior, but anyone knows how can I do it? copying manually or inserting a cp command into the package.json scripts?

Thanks in advance.

[Sean Maxwell]

So you're trying to get various .env files into your production env (i.e. development.env). I wouldn't recommend that. You should really only have one .env per environment. You could create another .env file called shared.env and load that for every env. Although I usually just hardcode variables that are used for every env.

[umbe1987]

Thanks for the suggestion!

I thought they were there due to the express-generator itself.

If I look in https://github.com/seanpmaxwell/express-generator-typescript/tree/master/sample-output/express-gen-ts/src/pre-start/env for example, I can see them.

Also, I guess the build.ts is copying the production.env one inside the dist folder.

I might be wring though...

[Sean Maxwell]

They are part of the project files that are copied when building. You can modify build.ts as your project needs change.

[umbe1987]

Ok, thanks for your time and the clarification. I really appreciate it!
I am closing this then.

[Sean Maxwell]

thx please star if you haven't