Environment variables and secrets

Warning

Do not use vars to store sensitive information in your Worker's Wrangler configuration file. Use secrets instead.

Put secrets for use in local development in either a .dev.vars file or a .env file, in the root of your project.

Choose to use either .dev.vars or .env but not both. If you define a .dev.vars file, then values in .env files will not be included in the env object during local development.

These files should be formatted using the dotenv ↗ syntax. For example:

.dev.vars / .env

SECRET_KEY="value"
API_TOKEN="eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9"

Do not commit secrets to git

The .dev.vars and .env files should not committed to git. Add .dev.vars* and .env* to your project's .gitignore file.

To set different secrets for each Cloudflare environment, create files named .dev.vars.<environment-name> or .env.<environment-name>.

When you select a Cloudflare environment in your local development, the corresponding environment-specific file will be loaded ahead of the generic .dev.vars (or .env) file.

• When using .dev.vars.<environment-name> files, all secrets must be defined per environment. If .dev.vars.<environment-name> exists then only this will be loaded; the .dev.vars file will not be loaded.
• In contrast, all matching .env files are loaded and the values are merged. For each variable, the value from the most specific file is used, with the following precedence:
  • .env.<environment-name>.local (most specific)
  • .env.local
  • .env.<environment-name>
  • .env (least specific)

Controlling .env handling

It is possible to control how .env files are loaded in local development by setting environment variables on the process running the tools.

• To disable loading local dev vars from .env files without providing a .dev.vars file, set the CLOUDFLARE_LOAD_DEV_VARS_FROM_DOT_ENV environment variable to "false".
• To include every environment variable defined in your system's process environment as a local development variable, ensure there is no .dev.vars and then set the CLOUDFLARE_INCLUDE_PROCESS_ENV environment variable to "true".

Basic setup

Here are steps to set up environment variables for local development using either .dev.vars or .env files.

1. Create a .dev.vars / .env file in your project root.

2. Add key-value pairs:

   .dev.vars/.env

   API_HOST="localhost:3000"
   DEBUG="true"
   SECRET_TOKEN="my-local-secret-token"

3. Run your dev command

   Wrangler

   npm

   npx wrangler dev

   yarn

   yarn wrangler dev

   pnpm

   pnpm wrangler dev

   Vite plugin

   npm

   npx vite dev

   yarn

   yarn vite dev

   pnpm

   pnpm vite dev

Multiple local environments

To simulate different local environments, you can provide environment-specific files. For example, you might have a staging environment that requires different settings than your development environment.

1. Create a file named .dev.vars.<environment-name>/.env.<environment-name>. For example, we can use .dev.vars.staging/.env.staging.

2. Add key-value pairs:

   .dev.vars.staging/.env.staging

   API_HOST="staging.localhost:3000"
   DEBUG="false"
   SECRET_TOKEN="staging-token"

3. Specify the environment when running the dev command:

   Wrangler

   npm

   npx wrangler dev --env staging

   yarn

   yarn wrangler dev --env staging

   pnpm

   pnpm wrangler dev --env staging

   Vite plugin

   npm

   CLOUDFLARE_ENV=staging npx vite dev

   yarn

   CLOUDFLARE_ENV=staging yarn vite dev

   pnpm

   CLOUDFLARE_ENV=staging pnpm vite dev

   • If using .dev.vars.staging, only the values from that file will be applied instead of .dev.vars.
   • If using .env.staging, the values will be merged with .env files, with the most specific file taking precedence.

Learn more

• To learn how to configure multiple environments in Wrangler configuration, read the documentation.
• To learn how to use Wrangler environments and Vite environments together, read the Vite plugin documentation