aws-dotenv is a cli tool that manages the envrionment variables for an application stored in the AWS Secrets Manager. The tool can set dotenv variables from your machine to the AWS Secrets Manager and pull them back from AWS to a .env file.

npm install aws-dotenv --save-dev

• Add .secretsrc to the project root

{
  "name": "My-Project",
  "description": "This project uses aws-dotenv!",
  "keys": [
    "ENV_VARIABLE",
    "ANOTHER_ENV_VARIABLE"
  ]
}

• Create .awsrc

{
    "accessKeyId": "ACCESS_KEY_ID",
    "secretAccessKey": "SECRET_ACCESS_KEY",
    "region": "us-east-2"
}

AWS Credentials can be configured using the AWS CLI tool. For additionnal AWS configuration documentation please refer to Configuration and credential file settings.

• Configure the AWS account by creating ~/.aws/credentials

[default]
aws_access_key_id=access_key_id
aws_secret_access_key=secret_access_key

• Configure the AWS region by creating ~/.aws/config

[default]
region=ca-central-1
output=json

• Create .env at the root of the project

AWS_SDK_LOAD_CONFIG=1

AWS_SDK_LOAD_CONFIG allows the tool to use your ~/.aws/ config folder. We recommend to leave it permanently as well as storing the variable inside AWS Secrets Manager.

$ aws-dotenv (command) (stage)

• pull
• set

Default stage is dev.

Refers to the development stage of the application. It is used to differentiate the multiple .env configurations your project might use at any time. Generally in the form of dev, test and prod but the name does not matter.

In these examples the files .env.prod and .env.dev are used. Secret name is defined in AWS Secrets Manager. You can also add these commands into your build so when they are pulled in when you deploy.

Setting up package.json

  "scripts": {
    "build:dev": "yarn pull-env-dev && env-cmd -f .env.dev react-scripts build",
    "build:prod": "yarn pull-env-prod && env-cmd -f .env.prod react-scripts build",
    "set-env-dev": "env-cmd -f .env.dev aws-dotenv set dev/example",
    "pull-env-dev": "aws-dotenv pull dev/example dev",
    "set-env-prod": "env-cmd -f .env.prod aws-dotenv set prod/example",
    "pull-env-prod": "aws-dotenv pull prod/example prod",
  }