Environment configuration and variables

Environment configurations

In case you need specific static configurations for specific environments, and using environment variables becomes tedious, Strapi configurations can be created per environment in ./config/env/{env}/{filename}.

These configurations will be merged into the base configurations defined in the ./config folder. The environment is based on the NODE_ENV environment variable (defaults to development).

When starting Strapi with NODE_ENV=production it will load the configuration from ./config/* and ./config/env/production/*. Everything defined in the production config will override the default config.

In combination with environment variables this pattern becomes really powerful.

Examples:

./config/server.js

module.exports = {
  host: '127.0.0.1',
};

./config/env/production/server.js

module.exports = ({ env }) => ({
  host: env('HOST', '0.0.0.0'),
});

When starting your application:

yarn start
# uses host 127.0.0.1

NODE_ENV=production yarn start
# uses host 0.0.0.0

HOST=10.0.0.1 NODE_ENV=production yarn start
# uses host 10.0.0.1

Environment variables

List of Strapi's environment variables

Some settings can only be modified through environment variables:

Setting	Type	Description	Default value
STRAPI_DISABLE_UPDATE_NOTIFICATION	Boolean	Don't show the notification message about updating strapi in the terminal	false
STRAPI_HIDE_STARTUP_MESSAGE	Boolean	Don't show the startup message in the terminal	false
STRAPI_TELEMETRY_DISABLED	Boolean	Don't send telemetry usage data to Strapi	false
STRAPI_LICENSE	String	The license key to activate the Enterprise Edition	undefined
NODE_ENV	String	Type of environment where the app is running	'development'
BROWSER	Boolean	Open the admin panel in the browser after startup	true
ENV_PATH	String	Path to the file that contains your environment variables	'./.env'
STRAPI_PLUGIN_I18N_INIT_LOCALE_CODE Optional	String	Initialization locale for the app, if the Internationalization (i18n) plugin is installed and enabled on Content-Types (see Configuration of i18n in production environments)	'en'
API_TOKEN_SALT Optional	String	Salt to use to generate API tokens	-

Configuration using environment variables

In most use cases there will be different configurations between environments (e.g. database credentials).

Instead of writing those credentials into configuration files, variables can be defined in a .env file at the root of the application:

# path: .env

DATABASE_PASSWORD=acme

To customize the path of the .env file to load, set an environment variable called ENV_PATH before starting the application:

$ ENV_PATH=/absolute/path/to/.env npm run start

Variables defined in the .env file are accessible using process.env.{variableName} anywhere in configuration and application files.

In configuration files, a env() utility allows defining defaults and casting values:

// path: ./config/database.js

module.exports = ({ env }) => ({
  connections: {
    default: {
      settings: {
        password: env('DATABASE_PASSWORD'),
      },
    },
  },
});

Casting environment variables

// Returns the env if defined without casting it
env('VAR', 'default');

// Cast to int (using parseInt)
env.int('VAR', 0);

// Cast to float (using parseFloat)
env.float('VAR', 3.14);

// Cast to boolean (check if the value is equal to 'true')
env.bool('VAR', true);

// Cast to js object (using JSON.parse)
env.json('VAR', { key: 'value' });

// Cast to an array (syntax: ENV_VAR=[value1, value2, value3] | ENV_VAR=["value1", "value2", "value3"])
env.array('VAR', [1, 2, 3]);

// Case to date (using new Date(value))
env.date('VAR', new Date());