Sync .env files

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 09:04:17 +0100

The .env file is a common standard to define environment variables and secrets for a software project. When working on multiple machines and in teams, ensuring that the .env files are up-to-date is important.

I was looking for a solution to solve this problem. If you duck for “Sync .env files” you will most likely end up on https://www.dotenv.org/docs/quickstart/sync. The Dotenv project provides a service for syncing .env files. However, their service requires an account and this was out of question in my case.

How can I sync secrets with my team using git only?

The solution I found was pass. I already talked about this tool and most importantly documented a way to use pass in teams. For a software project that uses the taskfile standard you can simply add two new commands: pass-store-dotenv and pass-restore-dotend

Here are the help entries:

printf "$COLUMN" "store-dotenv" "" "Store content of .env in pass entry."
printf "$COLUMN" "restore-dotenv" "" "Restore content of .env from pass entry."

And the functions:

PASS_ENTRY=/dotenv/project

function store-dotenv() {
    if [ -f .env ]; then
        echo "Store .env file in pass: $PASS_ENTRY"
        cat .env | pass insert -m -f "$PASS_ENTRY"
    else
        echo "No .env file found."
    fi
}

function restore-dotenv() {
    if pass find "$PASS_ENTRY" >/dev/null; then
        echo "Restore .env file from pass: $PASS_ENTRY"
        pass show "$PASS_ENTRY" > .env
    else
        echo "Pass entry not found."
    fi
}

To store the .env file in pass run task store-dotenv and pass git push. To restore it run pass git pull and task restore-dotenv. The content of the .env file is stored as a pass entry in the $PASS_ENTRY path.

Dotenv on Janik von Rotz

Sync .env files