not able to load .env file using dotenv in nestjs nodejs

Question

I am using nestjs for my nodejs project, and I want to load the .env file from outside of the project.

Here is the directory structure

.env
services
  /nodejs
     /my-apis
       /src  
         /main.ts

and in my main.ts

import * as dotenv from "dotenv";

dotenv.config({ path: `../../../../.env` });
console.log("process.env.PORT", process.env.PORT);
async function bootstrap() {
  const app = await NestFactory.create(AppModule);
  app.setGlobalPrefix("/api");
  await app.listen(process.env.PORT);
}

but it is not getting the values from .env, what can be the issue?

if you want a more idiomatic solution: https://docs.nestjs.com/techniques/configuration#configuration — Micael Levi, Sep 13 '21 at 18:34

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Sep 14 '21 at 06:18

1

https://stackoverflow.com/a/42335383/10562569

require('dotenv').config({path:__dirname+'/./../../.env'})

This might help. Customize it to your need.

edited Sep 14 '21 at 06:18

Sunil Garg

14,608
25
132
189

answered Sep 13 '21 at 12:33

Ann Francis

79
8

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 14 '21 at 07:47

I was loading the env file in main.ts. My app.module.ts was using some env variable to initialize Mongo.

So In my app.module.ts env variable was undefined. So I loaded the env in app.module.ts instead of main.ts

Also I used __dir_name for path

import * as dotenv from "dotenv";

dotenv.config({ path: `${__dirname}/../../../../.env` });

and this worked.

not able to load .env file using dotenv in nestjs nodejs

2 Answers2