Is there a utility to read environment variables from an env file and then run a command (more lightweight than foreman)?

You can source the environment file in the active shell and run the program:

sh -ac ' . ./.env; /usr/local/bin/someprogram'

The -a switch exports all variables, so that they are available to the program.


Another alternative is envdir:

envdir runs another program with environment modified according to files in a specified directory.

  • The daemontools original: http://cr.yp.to/daemontools/envdir.html
  • A python port: https://github.com/jezdez/envdir

I tried source .env and it worked like a charm. Unfortunately, none of the other solutions posted here worked for me.