create react app not picking up .env files?

Reactjs Problem Overview

I am using create react app to bootstrap my app.

I have added two .env files .env.development and .env.production in the root.

My .env.development includes:

API_URL=http://localhost:3000/api
CALLBACK_URL=http://localhost:3005/callback

When I run my app using react-scripts start and console out process.env it spits out

{ NODE_ENV: "development", PUBLIC_URL: "" }

I've tried different things, but its just not picking up the veriables in my development file, what am I doing wrong?!

Directry structure is:

/.env.development
/src/index.js

Package.json script is:

"start": "export PORT=3005; npm-run-all --parallel server:start client:start",
    "client:start": "export PORT=3005; react-scripts start",
    "server:start": "node server.js",
    "build": "react-scripts build",

Edit:

@jamcreencia correctly pointed out my variables should be prefixed with REACT_APP.

Edit 2

It works okay if I name the file .env but not if I use .env.development or .end.production

Reactjs Solutions

Solution 1 - Reactjs

With create react app, you need to prefix REACT_APP_ to the variable name. ex:

REACT_APP_API_URL=http://localhost:3000/api
REACT_APP_CALLBACK_URL=http://localhost:3005/callback

CRA Docs on Adding Custom Environment Variables:

> Note: You must create custom environment variables beginning with REACT_APP_. Any other variables except NODE_ENV will be ignored to avoid accidentally exposing a private key on the machine that could have the same name

Solution 2 - Reactjs

Make sure your .env file is in the root directory, not inside src folder.

Solution 3 - Reactjs

Had this same problem! The solution was to close the connection to my node server (you can do this with CTRL + C). Then re-start your server with 'npm run start' and .env should work properly.

Source: Github

Solution 4 - Reactjs

If you want to use multiple environment like .env.development .env.production

use dotenv-cli package

add .env.development and .env.production in project root folder

and your package.json

"scripts": {
    "start": "react-app-rewired start",
    "build-dev": "dotenv -e .env.development react-app-rewired build",
    "build-prod": "dotenv -e .env.production react-app-rewired build",
    "build": "react-app-rewired build",
    "test": "react-app-rewired test --env=jsdom",
    "eject": "react-scripts eject"   
},

then build according to environment like

npm run-script build-dev

Solution 5 - Reactjs

I was having the same problem, but it was because I had my .env file in YAML format instead of JS.

It was

REACT_APP_API_PATH: 'https://my.api.path'

but it needed to be

REACT_APP_API_PATH = 'https://my.api.path'

Solution 6 - Reactjs

Regarding env-cmd. As per VMois's kind post on gitHub, env-cmd has been updated ( version 9.0.1 as of writing ), environment variables will work as follows on your React project:

"scripts": {
    "build:local": "env-cmd -f ./.env.production.local npm run build",
    "build:production": "env-cmd -f ./.env.production npm run build"
  }

In your package.json file.

Solution 7 - Reactjs

For people who apply all those answers above and didn't work just restart the terminal of npm start, stop the live server and run it again and it will work because it works for me

Solution 8 - Reactjs

For this purpose there is [env-cmd][1] module. Install via npm npm i env-cmd then in your package.json file in scripts section:

  "scripts": {
    "start": "env-cmd .env.development react-scripts start",
    "build": "GENERATE_SOURCEMAP=false env-cmd .env.production react-scripts build",
  }

In your project root you have to create two files with the same env variables but with different values:

.env.development
.env.production

Then exclude them from public. For this in your .gitignore file add two lines:

.env.development
.env.production

So this is a proper way to use different env variables for dev and prod. [1]: https://www.npmjs.com/package/env-cmd

Solution 9 - Reactjs

If the .env file works but .env.development or .env.production don't, then create an empty .env file alongside those two. I don't know why but this works for me.

Solution 10 - Reactjs

While working with .env file, be it frontend or backend.

Whenever you modify the .env file, you must restart the respective server for the changes to take effect in the application.
Hot reloading doesn't read changes from .env file.

Solution 11 - Reactjs

Your project can consume variables declared in your environment as if they were declared locally in your JS files. By default you will have NODE_ENV defined for you, and any other environment variables starting with REACT_APP_.

Reference: https://create-react-app.dev/docs/adding-custom-environment-variables

that doc creates confusion.

So you actually need to put prefix REACT_APP_ within the .env to make it work.

And make sure that you restart the test/dev/prod server because the .env content change was loaded on the build stage.

Solution 12 - Reactjs

when you get undefined from the environment file then just stop the terminal and restarts with npm start command.

Solution 13 - Reactjs

And remember not to have semi-colon after the API key in the env-file.

REACT_APP_API_KEY = 'ae87cec695cc4heheh639d06c9274a';

should be

REACT_APP_API_KEY = 'ae87cec695cc44heheh1639d06c9274a'

that was my error

Solution 14 - Reactjs

For any VS Code users, be aware that the .env.local env file is auto-sourced, but also auto-ignored from search results when you do a project wide search for MY_ENV_VAR(probably due to it being git ignored by default). This means that if you have MY_ENV_VAR= in your .env.local like me and forgot about it, it'll break things and you'll spend 15 mins being very confused.

Solution 15 - Reactjs

Was struggling for a good hour before I noticed my kind IDE added an import:

import * as process from "process";

just remove it and you're fine, if that's your case as well.

Solution 16 - Reactjs

After you add .env file, you need to

restart your application
kill the server
run npm start again

And it should work

Solution 17 - Reactjs

I forget to add process.env.

It looks like this

const domain = process.env.REACT_APP_AUTH0_DOMAIN;

Solution 18 - Reactjs

I didn't get any value back as well. For some reason, I thought the environment file should be dev.env, qa.env etc. Actually, it's just ".env". That's that. In case some else makes this mistake.

Solution 19 - Reactjs

create-react does not supports hot reload feature .env files since they are not Javascript. So, when you change the env files make sure to manually start your server to see the effect of new changes.

In my case, a manual restart of the server worked fine :)

Solution 20 - Reactjs

What worked for me was to install env-cmd and after that in my package.JSON add the following line of code

"scripts": {
"start": "env-cmd -f .env.development react-scripts start ",
"build": "react-scripts build",
"test": "react-scripts test",
"eject": "react-scripts eject"

}

Solution 21 - Reactjs

As of latest react-scripts (3.2.0) it's a simple as putting say

PORT=4000
BROWSER=none

in your .env or .env.development file (..etc) which is supposed to be in the root folder.

It will NOT work with then REACT_APP prefix (the docs are outdated I guess) and it does NOT require any extra npm packages (react-scripts already includes dotenv 6.2.0)

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	shenku	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Reactjs	jamcreencia	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Reactjs	Ryan Dhungel	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Reactjs	J.S. Peterson	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Reactjs	Maria Jeysingh Anbu	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Reactjs	cchapman	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Reactjs	tim	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - Reactjs	Nassim	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 8 - Reactjs	Nastro	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 9 - Reactjs	Stjepan Golemac	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 10 - Reactjs	Firoj Siddiki	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 11 - Reactjs	ZenithS	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 12 - Reactjs	NafazBenzema	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 13 - Reactjs	user11319228	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 14 - Reactjs	Adverbly	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 15 - Reactjs	Huckleberry Ogre Developer	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 16 - Reactjs	Patrick Rashidi	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 17 - Reactjs	smit agravat	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 18 - Reactjs	user2210411	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 19 - Reactjs	Gautam Arora	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 20 - Reactjs	Federico Correa	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 21 - Reactjs	Christos Tatitzikidis	View Answer on Stackoverflow