Missing env variables running npm run start locally

[kwiat1990]

I wanted to check the production build of my app locally, so I have built it with npm run build and then ran npm run start. Normally, with other frameworks/libraries, it did always work. With Remix I get following error:

npm run start

> start
> remix-serve build

/Users/mateusz.kwiatkowski/Playground/remix-mantine/app/server/session.server.ts:6
  throw new Error("SESSION_SECRET must be set"); // my custom error

I can also see that process.env object in the production build doesn't contain any of variables I've defined. It has only the default one like NODE_ENV or PATH. So my question is how I can test the build locally and load my .env file?

[kiliman]

Remix only loads the .env file for you in development. It expects you to define them for production at your hosting platform.

Anyway to load them locally on your production build, you’ll need to install dotenv-cli then update your start script to

dotenv remix-serve build

https://www.npmjs.com/package/dotenv-cli

[kwiat1990]

Thanks, dotenvpackage was the missing piece.

[nikolailehbrink]

Hi @kiliman, I am using React Router 7, followed your advice here but even with dotenv-cli installed it won't work. Created this issue and maybe you can help? Would be highly appreciated!