Why is the codebase not using environemnt variables from .env files

[divyanshchahar]

The code does not makes use of any of the environemnt variables from .env file. This is because one of the following reasons :

• Most of the envrinment variables are provided by the getConfig function located in backend/src/lib/config/env.ts. However, since backend/src/main.ts does not configures dotenv correctly ( dotenv needs to have a path attribute specified to locate .env, since it is not located at the same level), backend/src/lib/config/env.ts cannot locate the .env.
• Wherever envoronment variables are used without getConfig function ( for example in backend/src/db/knexfile.ts ), they are using dotnev to acess these environment variables, but dotenv in those files is either missing path attribute or the path resolution cannot happen properly.

Below is a detailed description for every environment variable and why they are essentially unused in the code base

Provided by getConfig in backend/src/lib/config/env.ts but not read from .env

All the environemnt variables listed in this section are not read from the .env file because process.env.ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE is not used in the getConfig function

• AUTH_SECRET
• REDIS_URL
• SITE_URL
• SMTP_HOST
• SMTP_USERNAME
• SMTP_PASSWORD
• CLIENT_ID_HEROKU
• CLIENT_ID_VERCEL
• CLIENT_ID_NETLIFY
• CLIENT_ID_GITHUB
• CLIENT_ID_GITLAB
• CLIENT_ID_BITBUCKET
• CLIENT_SECRET_HEROKU
• CLIENT_SECRET_VERCEL
• CLIENT_SECRET_NETLIFY
• CLIENT_SECRET_GITHUB
• CLIENT_SECRET_GITLAB
• CLIENT_SECRET_BITBUCKET
• CLIENT_SLUG_VERCEL
• CLIENT_ID_GOOGLE_LOGIN
• CLIENT_SECRET_GOOGLE_LOGIN
• CLIENT_ID_GITHUB_LOGIN
• CLIENT_SECRET_GITHUB_LOGIN
• CLIENT_ID_GITLAB_LOGIN
• CLIENT_SECRET_GITLAB_LOGIN
• CAPTCHA_SECRET
• PLAIN_API_KEY
• PLAIN_WISH_LABEL_IDS

Provided by getConfig in backend/src/lib/config/env.ts but values are hardcoded

All the values in this section are also provided by getConfig but instead of being read from the .env file they are hardocded

• SMTP_PORT
• POSTHOG_HOST
• POSTHOG_PROJECT_API_KEY

Declared in .env but not used anywhere in the codebase

• POSTGRES_PASSWORD
• POSTGRES_USER
• POSTGRES_DB
• SMTP_NAME
• SENTRY_DSN

Other issues

• DB_CONNECTION_URI : This environment variable is provided by getConfig and is also directly used in backend/src/db/knexfile.ts. Since dotenv is not configured with path attribute in backend/src/db/knexfile.ts is unable to locate the .env. In the getConfig function the value is not read from .env

[maidul98]

The .env file is pased via Zod here https://github.com/Infisical/infisical/blob/main/backend/src/lib/config/env.ts#L167

And it is used throughout the app via https://github.com/Infisical/infisical/blob/main/backend/src/lib/config/env.ts#L164

[divyanshchahar]

• process.env.ENV_VAR is rarely used in any variable like it is done here

• dotenv.config is missing a path property here which is required whenever .env files are not in the same directory as the file which executes dotenv.config

• even the values which uses process.env.ENV_VAR like shown here are undefined at runtime because dotenv.config in this file cannot resolve the path to .env file

• thus .env files are redundant at this point