Environment variables

Solid is built on top of Vite, which offers a convenient way to handle environment variables.

Public Environment Variables

Public variables are considered safe to expose to the client-side code. These variables are prefixed with VITE_ and are injected into the client-side code during compilation time.

In the root directory of the project, create a file called .env. This file will store environment variables in the key = value format.

If working with TypeScript it is possible to make such variables type-safe and enable your TypeScript Language Service Provider (LSP) to autocomplete them by creating a file called .env.d.ts in the root directory of the project.

interface ImportMetaEnv {
  readonly VITE_USER_ID: string;
  readonly VITE_PUBLIC_ENDPOINT: string;
}

interface ImportMeta {
  readonly env: ImportMetaEnv;
}

VITE_SECRET_KEY = 123hello
DB_PASSWORD = foobar

console.log(import.meta.env.VITE_SECRET_KEY); // 123hello
console.log(import.meta.env.DB_PASSWORD); // undefined

function MyComponent() {
  return (
    <div>
      <h2>
        Component with environment variable used{" "}
        {import.meta.env.VITE_VARIABLE_NAME}
        the value will be replaced during compilation time.
      </h2>
    </div>
  );
}

Private Environment Variables

These variables should only be accessed in your backend code, and so it's best to not use VITE_ prefix for them. Instead, use process.env to access them. Depending on the Nitro preset chosen, they'll be made available automatically or they will require an external dependency such as dotenv.

DB_HOST="somedb://192.110.0"
DB_PASSWORD = super_secret_password_hash

To access them, within your backend code, use process.env. For an example, check the pseudo-code below.

  "use server"

  const client = new DB({
    host: process.env.DB_URL,
    password: process.env.DB_PASSWORD
  });
}

It is also possible to make process.env type-safe via the same .env.d.ts file.

declare namespace NodeJS {
  interface ProcessEnv {
    readonly DB_URL: string
    readonly DB_PASSWORD: string
  }
}