How do I add environment variables to launch.json in VSCode

Question

Working with the new VSCode editor on a node.js project. I am attempting to configure my "Launch" profile for debugging by editing the launch.json file. I need to setup a connectionstring as an environment variable. According to the comments in the launch.json file:

// Environment variables passed to the program.
"env": { }

I have tried adding my environment variable like so:

"env":
{
"CONNECTION_STRING": "Data Source=server;Initial Catalog=catalog;User ID=uid;Password=pwd;MultipleActiveResultSets=true"
}

This causes an error when I try to launch my app; "OpenDebug process has terminated unexpectedly". I have not yet found any log files, etc. that might explain what the issue is.

I know this app works correctly when I setup the environment variable and launch my app from the standard command prompt. The app also runs as expected if I comment out my variable in the launch.json file; I just can't connect to the database.

I am assuming that I am using the wrong format in the launch.json file, but I have not yet found any way to make this work.

Any ideas?

btburton42 · Answer 1 · 2021-08-03T20:54:40.103

303

I'm successfully passing them using the env property in launch.json:

{
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
    {
      "type": "pwa-node",
      "request": "launch",
      "name": "Launch Program",
      "skipFiles": [
        "<node_internals>/**"
      ],
      "program": "${workspaceFolder}/index.js",
      "env": {
        "TEST_VAR": "foo"
      }
    }
  ]
}

edited Aug 03 '21 at 20:54

answered Jul 31 '17 at 23:08

btburton42

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29

I got `Property env is not allowd in launch.json` – nowox Feb 25 '20 at 12:09
26

`env` has been renamed to `environment` in current versions of VSCode, the syntax is also changed. See the post of @Gabriel below. – burito May 02 '20 at 05:28
1

I'm using the latest version `1.58.2` of VSCode as of today (Aug 02, 2021) and @aljohn-yamaro's answer works for me. – shubhamsingh Aug 01 '21 at 19:50
updated. thanks to Gabriel and aljohn-yamaro for the structure updates. – btburton42 Aug 03 '21 at 20:59
env works for me as well as of today – John Dec 01 '21 at 17:45
1

@burito I've just had the issue whereby `env` had stopped working and i had to replace it with `environment` as per your comment. Why is this the case now? Is there any doc I can refer to as to why this had to happen? – JamesS Apr 12 '22 at 14:17
2

From the comments it feels as if there was an issue with the `env` property. Just here to confirm that `env` works for me on VS Code 1.67 as of today (for `"type": "go"`). – nu_popli May 18 '22 at 18:40

score 68 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 25 '20 at 02:50

68

this is working

just add the following

"env": { "NODE_ENV": "development" }

"configurations": [
    {
        "type": "node",
        "request": "launch",
        "name": "Launch Program", //TODO: cmd as launch program
        "skipFiles": [
            "<node_internals>/**"
        ],
        "program": "${workspaceFolder}\\index.js",
        "env": {
            "NODE_ENV": "development"
        }
    }
]

answered Mar 25 '20 at 02:50

Aljohn Yamaro

2,629
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10

With all the changes to the VS Code task runner since the original question this answer should move way up the list, it's right and it works! – Trevor Apr 19 '20 at 12:36

Isaac Pak · Answer 3 · 2021-02-06T01:06:29.573

46

Version 1.49.1

You can add env variables by using the env property in your launch.json file or by using the envFile property with the value being the location of your .env file.

Warning: If you already have a .env file it auto includes it. (per denislexic comment)

env example:

{
  ...
   "env": { "PORT": "4000" }
  ...
}

envFile example:

{
  ...
  "envFile": "${workspaceFolder}/server/.env",
  ...
}

edited Feb 06 '21 at 01:06

answered Sep 22 '20 at 16:41

Isaac Pak

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4

Both are still is broken for python – garyM Oct 11 '20 at 06:45
3

Please add a warning saying if you already have a `.env` file it auto includes it... – denislexic Feb 05 '21 at 23:28
3

envFile example worked for me in JavaScript Thanks Isaac – Hidayat Arghandabi Mar 21 '21 at 23:45
```"envFile": "${workspaceFolder}/config.env"``` worked for me. Thank you. – Jay Teli Aug 24 '22 at 19:49
"envFile": "${workspaceFolder}/server/.env", This works like a charm. even when using ts node dev or any program this basically helps out. – Alok Rajasukumaran Dec 19 '22 at 18:03

Gabriel · Answer 4 · 2020-01-03T13:07:09.480

34

Like this, under your OS:

        "osx": {
            "MIMode": "lldb",
            "environment": [{"name": "DYLD_LIBRATY_PATH", "value": "/Users/x/boost_1_63_0/stage/lib/"}]
        },

edited Jan 03 '20 at 13:07

answered Nov 23 '17 at 01:51

Gabriel

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2

This also works for my on Linux, but I think it is also strongly related to the type of debugger (`cppdbg` in my case) – Amfasis Jan 02 '20 at 07:36
1

Why is the dictionary in a list now? – Cees Timmerman May 04 '20 at 11:13
2

@CeesTimmerman, it is so you can have multiple environment variables...each a dictionary of a name and value. A bit verbose but it does allow for auto-complete of 'name' and 'path'. – Robert Lugg Jul 09 '20 at 04:19

score 31 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 24 '20 at 04:26

31

There seems to be a problem with environment variables on Windows (and probably on linux). It does work on OS X. We are investigating. Expect a fix soon.

Update (June 2, 2015): Visual Studio Code 0.3.0 contains a fix for this.

edited Jan 24 '20 at 04:26

Uwe Keim

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answered May 03 '15 at 21:49

Andre Weinand

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**SOLUTION!** Take a look here https://stackoverflow.com/a/70748562/3223785 . – Eduardo Lucio Jan 25 '22 at 01:53

score 16 · Answer 6 · answered Sep 24 '18 at 06:44

16

Since late 2016 you can also use the envFile for Node.js projects:

The VS Code Node debugger now supports to load environment variables from a file and passes them to the node runtime. https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/15964

Also see: Load environment variables from external file (node):

To use this feature, add an attribute envFile to your launch configuration and specify the absolute path to the file containing the environment variables:

For Asp.Net Core projects, this feature isn't supported natively by vscode but it has recently been added to the omnisharp vscode extension. This feature is available since September 10, 2018 via v1.16.0.

answered Sep 24 '18 at 06:44

Felix K.

14,171
9
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This is handy but how to use these variables in "args" for VSCode Launch config file? You may specify "args" but you can't use environment variables there (in terminal you can) – Jerry Green Sep 08 '19 at 15:48
2

I want to do `"args": ["-p", "${SERVER_PORT}"]` along with `"envFile": "${workspaceFolder}/.env"`, but looks like `"${SERVER_PORT}"` doesn't work – Jerry Green Sep 08 '19 at 15:52
1

Yep, found out that is not and will not be supported https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/89825 – Crhistian Nov 11 '21 at 19:55

score 10 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 24 '20 at 04:21

10

I had this same problem and it turns out I had a .env file in my project root which was overriding the launch.json settings. YOU'VE BE WARNED. :)

answered Jan 24 '20 at 04:21

CpILL

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Thanks for the tip but how did you figure that one out!? :) – Slawomir Nov 17 '22 at 22:15

score 6 · Answer 8 · edited Aug 25 '21 at 09:31

It worked for my django project using the envFile variable. You can checkout this link: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/debugging

{
   "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
        {
            "name": "Python: Django",
            "type": "python",
            "request": "launch",
            "program": "${workspaceFolder}/project/manage.py",
            "args": [
                "runserver"
            ],
            "django": true,
            "envFile": "${workspaceFolder}/project/Server/settings/local.env"
        }
    ]
}

score 4 · Answer 9 · answered Jan 20 '20 at 15:36

For reference, I came across a similar issue (in 2020, long after the bug mentioned in the accepted answer above was fixed) for a different language and would like to point out something:

Accoding to Microsoft's documentation on launch configurations, many common options, including "env" are not requried features for all different debugging/run environments - that is to say, it seems to me that it is not VS Code that 'provides' the option for environment variables, but rather, the choice of the specific debugger extension to implement this feature. Therefore, either

An unexpected crash of the debugging application
the warning Property "env" is not allowed

may occur because the particular language/debugger you are using doesn't support or hasn't implemented handling of environment variables.

As qbiq has said, probably a quick workaround for this if the environment variables are not going to change across launches would be to export them and run VS Code with this specific set of variables set.

Two quotes from the documentation (September 2022): "There are many launch.json attributes to help support different debuggers and debugging scenarios. (...) you can use IntelliSense (...) to see the list of available attributes once you have specified a value for the type attribute.", and: "Many debuggers support some of the following attributes: (...) env (...), envFile (...)." — Gerard Jaryczewski, Sep 20 '22 at 19:44

score 2 · Answer 10 · answered Jun 25 '20 at 04:42

On june 2020 this is still very misleading and broken on OSX Catalina 10.15.5. I am using VSCode insiders with CodeLLDB extension version 1.5.3:

Version: 1.47.0-insider
Commit: 0913b1aa43191d8af0ccb4a133d9a8d7c1a81d69
Date: 2020-06-23T09:38:28.751Z (1 day ago)
Electron: 8.3.3
Chrome: 80.0.3987.165
Node.js: 12.13.0
V8: 8.0.426.27-electron.0
OS: Darwin x64 19.5.0

When launching the debugger with the env keyword on launch.json I get this:

So in a nutshell, using "env" directive in launch.json will show up the message in the screenshot. This will prevent running the debugger, surprising lacking feature, but fair enough.

But then, using environment instead of env, there's no error message popping up but the environment variables are not available on the runtime being debugged, so getenv(whatever) does not return the actual value for that key :-!

score 1 · Answer 11 · answered May 23 '15 at 22:01

as a workaround, you can set environment variables when starting VSCode, for example, using this little powershell script:

param(
 $vars = @{}
)

$vars.Keys | % {
    write-host "adding env variable: $_=$($vars[$_])"
    [Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable($_, $vars[$_], "Process")
}
$ver = "0.1.0"
& "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Code\app-$ver\Code.exe"

Save it as vscode.ps1 and call it from commandline, like this:

powershell ".\vscode.ps1 -vars @{ 'NODE_ENV'='test'; 'SOMETHING'='else' }"

How do I add environment variables to launch.json in VSCode

11 Answers11

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