Hierarchical environment variable management

Managing environment variables for different stages, regions, etc. is an unavoidable chore when working on cloud projects.

Especially the challenge of avoiding duplication and knowing where a particular value is coming from. Hierarchical variable management seems to be a good solution for this problem.

• Compile a resulting set of environment variables from a linked list of <name>.env files.
• Linked .env files form trees. Paths from leave-nodes to root (branches) form the resulting set of variables.
• Last defined variable wins, i.e. child tops parent.
• Smart environment selection via builtin FZF (fuzzy find).
• Quick edit via builtin FZF.
• Side-by-side Tree edit.
• direnv integration: Have the resulting variable list written to your .envrc file.
• JetBrains integration via EnvFile plugin.

cargo install rs-env

The resulting set of environment variables comes from a merge of all linked .env files.

• branch: a linear list of files, each file can have one parent (no DAG).
• tree: a collection of branches (files can be part of multiple branches, but only one parent)
• environment variables are defined in files <name>.env and must be prefixed with export command
• See examples
• multiple trees/branches per project are supported
• files are linked by adding the comment line # rsenv: <name.env> or via: rsenv link <root.env> <child1>.env <child2>.env.

Publish the resulting set of variables to the shell:

source <(rsenv build <leaf-node.env>)

Hierarchical environment variable management

Usage: rsenv [OPTIONS] [NAME] [COMMAND]

Commands:
  build        Build and display the complete set of environment variables
  envrc        Write environment variables to .envrc file (requires direnv)
  files        List all files in the environment hierarchy
  edit-leaf    Edit an environment file and all its parent files
  edit         Interactively select and edit an environment hierarchy
  select-leaf  Update .envrc with selected environment (requires direnv)
  select       Interactively select environment and update .envrc (requires direnv)
  link         Create parent-child relationships between environment files
  branches     Show all branches (linear representation)
  tree         Show all trees (hierarchical representation)
  tree-edit    Edit all environment hierarchies side-by-side (requires vim)
  leaves       List all leaf environment files
  help         Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)

Arguments:
  [NAME]  Name of the configuration to operate on (optional)

Options:
  -d, --debug...              Enable debug logging. Multiple flags (-d, -dd, -ddd) increase verbosity
      --generate <GENERATOR>  Generate shell completion scripts [possible values: bash, elvish, fish, powershell, zsh]
      --info                  Display version and configuration information
  -h, --help                  Print help
  -V, --version               Print version

direnv activates environments automatically.

• rs-env can update the .envrc file with the dependency graph variables.

Life injection of environment variables:

• Plugin EnvFile can be used to life-inject environment variables.
• Use the script runenv.sh as the "EnvFile" script (tick executable checkbox !).
• The environment variable RUN_ENV parametrizes which environment to load.
• It will look for a file <RUN_ENV>.env in the specified directory.

• Tests for "skim" need valid terminal, so they are run via Makefile.
• Test for rsenv select: run debug target and check rsenv .envrc file.