Vite fails to read .env

[Bloodiko]

TLDR:

When running Fresh via Vite, the .env file is not properly loaded into the process.

Reproduction:

// .env file
CUSTOM="debug_value"

// vite.config.ts (to error out as soon as possible after reproduction) 
console.log(`CUSTOM env var from dotenvfile: ${Deno.env.get("CUSTOM")}`);
process.exit(1)

Running vite dev task:

deno task dev
Task dev vite
CUSTOM env var from dotenvfile: undefined

Additional Info

When running the file manually using deno run -A --env vite.config.ts
it works:

deno run -A --env vite.config.ts
CUSTOM env var from dotenvfile: debug_value

Assumption

This may be totally wrong, but I assume that vite runs the deno subcommand by using deno run -A FILE but is missing --env --> deno run -A --env FILE

Because adding

// in vite.config.ts
import "jsr:@std/dotenv/load";

to the file also works when using deno run -A FILE (by omitting --env)

deno run -A vite.config.ts      
CUSTOM env var from dotenvfile: debug_value

[marvinhagemeister]

Yes, the deno task command by default doesn't pass --env-file to any node binaries it encounters. To resolve this issue, update the relevant tasks in deno.json:

  {
    "task": {
-     "dev": "vite"
+     "dev": "deno run -A --env-file npm:vite"
    }
  }

[bjesuiter]

@marvinhagemeister Unfortunately I don't think we can close this issue so fast.

This is the issue I mentioned to you over on bluesky in the morning and you said:

That sounds like something we need to fix. Env wars should work out of the box.
https://bsky.app/profile/marvinh.dev/post/3lyn2ok2is22d

While I haven't checked whether it works to run vite with deno's --env-file / --env command, it seems like we have a much bigger issue with loading env vars under the hood. And as we already agreed on bluesky, Env var loading should work out of the box.

Little sidequest to deno run --env flag

BTW: why is deno only loading env vars from .env when I pass the '--env' flag? This flag is not documented anywhere, but it seems to be required that deno run detects .env at all if i don't pass a custom name via deno run --env-file my.env
But this is another issue, back to the original one.

Reproduction of the problem

I build a reproduction repo right now. You can find it here:
https://github.com/jbscratch/fresh2-vite-env-issue-reproduction

The TL;DR

1. Variables named VITE_ will be available in my fresh code via import.meta.env, when coming both from .env as well as .env.local
2. All other variables do not appear anywhere, not via process.env and neither via Deno.env.toObject() or import.meta.env

[marvinhagemeister]

BTW: why is deno only loading env vars from .env when I pass the '--env' flag? This flag is not documented anywhere, but it seems to be required that deno run detects .env at all if i don't pass a custom name via deno run --env-file my.env
But this is another issue, back to the original one.

The --env flag is an exact alias of --env-file, see https://github.com/denoland/deno/blob/bf8288baa50d084580ee003b08f7b2421773ba94/cli/args/flags.rs#L4396-L4397 . I'm not sure why it doesn't show up in the docs. Under the hood there is no difference between --env and --env-file and they work exactly the same way. It looks like --env is sorta soft deprecated and that we want folks to use --env-file

[marvinhagemeister]

Bug report for the difference in enumerability of process.env vs Deno.env.toObject() denoland/deno#30701

[bjesuiter]

Update for anyone stumbling over this: fixed

The envs properly show up since jsr:@fresh/plugin-vite@1.0.2