dotenv file is not loading environment variables

I have .env file at root folder file

NODE_ENV=development
NODE_HOST=localhost
NODE_PORT=4000
NODE_HTTPS=false
DB_HOST=localhost
DB_USERNAME=user
DB_PASSWORD=user

And server.js file in the root/app/config/server.js folder. The first line of server.js file is

require('dotenv').config();

I also tried following:

require('dotenv').config({path: '../.env'});

require('dotenv').config({path: '../../.env'});

However, my env variable are not loaded when I run the server.js file from command prompt

node root/app/config/server.js

If I use the visual studio and press F5, it loads!!

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, what I'm missing. Any suggestion is highly appreciate. Thanks.

How about use require('dotenv').config({path:__dirname+'/./../../.env'}) ?

Your problem seems to be the execution path.

This solved my issues in Node v8.14.1:

const path = require('path')
require('dotenv').config({ path: path.resolve(__dirname, '../.env') })

Simply doing require('dotenv').config({path:__dirname+'/./../../.env'}) resulted in a location that resolved as /some/path/to/env/./../../.env

Here is a single-line solution:

require('dotenv').config({ path: require('find-config')('.env') })

This will recurse parent directories until it finds a .env file to use.

You can also alternatively use this module called ckey inspired from one-liner above.

.env file from main directory.

# dotenv sample content
[email protected]
PASSWORD=iampassword123
API_KEY=1234567890

some js file from sub-directory

const ck = require('ckey');

const userName = ck.USER;     // [email protected]
const password = ck.PASSWORD; // iampassword123
const apiKey   = ck.API_KEY;  // 1234567890

If you are invoking dotenv from a nested file, and your .env file is at the project root, the way you want to connect the dots is via the following:

require('dotenv').config({path:'relative/path/to/your/.env'})