dotbean

A simple and lightweight Node.js library to load environment variables from a .env file into process.env. Built as a modern, ESM-first alternative to dotenv.

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🚀 Features

• Simple & Fast: Minimalist design with no dependencies.
• ESM First: Built for modern JavaScript modules.
• No Overwriting: By default, it won't overwrite existing environment variables.

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📦 Installation

To install dotbean in your project, use npm:

npm install dotbean

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💻 Usage

1. Create a .env file

   In the root of your project, create a file named .env and add your environment variables to it.

   # .env file
   API_KEY=my-super-secret-key
   DB_URL="mongodb://localhost:27017/my_app"
   PORT=3000
   

2. Configure dotbean

   Import and call the config() function at the very top of your main application file (e.g., app.js).

   // app.js
   import { config } from 'dotbean';
   
   config();
   
   // The rest of your application code can now access the variables
   import express from 'express';
   const app = express();
   const port = process.env.PORT;
   
   app.get('/', (req, res) => {
     res.send(`Server running with API Key: ${process.env.API_KEY}`);
   });
   
   app.listen(port, () => {
     console.log(`Server listening on port ${port}`);
   });
   

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Options

The config() function accepts an optional object to customize its behavior.

Option	Type	Default	Description
path	string	.env	Specify a custom path to your environment file.
override	boolean	false	Set to true to force dotbean to overwrite variables that already exist in process.env.

Example with a custom path:

import { config } from 'dotbean'; config({ path: './config/production.env' });

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📜 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.