Parcel: RFC: dotenv support should not use NODE_ENV

[martell]

💬 RFC

Currently the dotenv support uses process.env.NODE_ENV to decide what .env file to load in src/utils/env.js

This has come up a few times across the nodejs ecosystem where users are setting NODE_ENV without being aware of the consequences.

Rather than making a PR to change it I thought it might be best to raise it as an rfc first and maintainers could come up with some suggestion in the event they agree with this requested change.

PARCEL_ENV or BUILD_ENV or has someone got something a lot better?

🔦 Context

A lot of code across the node ecosystem uses if(process.env.NODE_ENV !== 'production')
This is important because it means that we should not depend on NODE_ENV when trying to load a staging or other target environment that we don't want to behave like a development environment.

[micksatana]

Seem more and more ppl having this issue. It's a won't fix as mentioned in #1476 but I sincerely hope this RFC accepted in v2

[DeMoorJasper]

1476 has been fixed a long while ago and should only fallback to a default.

[micksatana]

1476 has been fixed a long while ago and should only fallback to a default.

Thank you very much for pointing out. I just noticed that it was fixed in v1.9.3.

[nielskrijger]

I've been struggling with this setting too.

When I build using NODE_ENV=production my basic React helloworld comes in at 117.88 KB. If i run NODE_ENV=staging the helloworld bundle comes in at 249.77 KB (say what?).

There appears to be no easy way to create a fully minified build for a staging environment for React. I think React is at fault here of using NODE_ENV. Parcel fixes that mistake by automatically setting NODE_ENV=production when it makes sense.

However right now creating A/B tests or minified builds for non-production environments requires me to generate .env.production files dynamically. Not ideal.
Edit: discovered Parcel includes the https://github.com/motdotla/dotenv-expand library, allowing you to just set env variables while keeping NODE_ENV=production.

The fix seems simple: allow some other means to load a .env.{...} file.

I like the suggestion of @martell; let's not promote the use of NODE_ENV everywhere.

A less invasive option could be an override like parcel build --env=test index.html.

[good-idea]

+1 here, I want to run everything on staging as if it were production, just with some different env variables. So NODE_ENV=production is a must. I have a bunch of variables - I would love an option like parcel build --env-file .env.staging index.html

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