.env.local ✔ 【EXTENDED】

require('dotenv').config(); const express = require('express'); const app = express();

PORT=3000 NODE_ENV=development Next, create a .env.local file for environment-specific variables: .env.local

# .env.local.staging DATABASE_URL=postgresql://user:password@staging-host:5432/staging_database require('dotenv')

Before diving into the benefits of .env.local , let's discuss the challenges of managing environment-specific variables. Imagine you're working on a project that requires different database connections for development, staging, and production. You might be tempted to hardcode these connections in your code or use a complex system of conditional statements to switch between them. Let's consider an example use case with Node

.env.local is a file that stores environment-specific variables for your application. It's a variant of the popular .env file, which is used to store environment variables for your project. While .env is typically used to store variables that are shared across multiple environments, .env.local is used to store environment-specific variables that override or complement the variables defined in .env .

Let's consider an example use case with Node.js and Express. Suppose you have a project that requires different database connections for development, staging, and production. You can define shared variables in a .env file: