dotem

dotem is a simple Python package designed to streamline the process of loading environment variables into your shell from a .env.toml file. It aims to make the configuration of your development environment easier and more consistent.

Motivation

Managing environment variables is a common task in software development, and it can become cumbersome, especially when dealing with multiple configurations for different environments.

An example of a project with many different .env files:

project/
|-- env/
|   |-- .env
|   |-- .env.local
|   |-- .env.development
|   |-- .env.staging
|   |-- .env.uat
|   |-- .env.prod
|   `-- ...
`-- ...

dotem was created with the following motivations:

• Simplicity: Provide a straightforward solution for loading environment variables, reducing the complexity of managing configurations using a single file .env.toml.
• Consistency: Establish a consistent approach to handling environment variables across projects, using a standardized .env.toml file format.
• Ease of Use: Make it easy for developers to "source" their environment variables in a single command call.

Installation

Warning

dotem is supported in Linux and Darwin machines only!

You can install dotem using pip. Run the following command:

pip install dotem

Then, in your .bashrc or .zshrc file, add the following line:

eval "$("dotem-cli" hook)"

Features

• Loading and unloading environment variables from a .env.toml file.
• Simple and lightweight.
• Support TOML format for easy configuration.
• Loading and unloading environment variables with inheritance.

Usage

1. Create a .env.toml file with your environment variables.

   [development]
   API_KEY = "..."
   DATABASE_URL = "..."
   
   [production]
   API_KEY = "..."
   DATABASE_URL = "..."

2. In your shell, use dotem load [profile] to load the environment variable into your shell.

   dotem load development

   This will load the environment variables of that profile in your shell.

Commands

• dotem load [profile] - Loads the environment variables defined in the profile.
• dotem unload [profle] - Unsets the environment variables defined in the profile.
• dotem edit - Edits the .env.toml file in the $EDITOR
• dotem hook - A script to hook up dotem
• dotem --help - Help
• dotem [COMMAND] --help - Command help

Configuration

.env.toml search path

By default, dotem will look for the .env.toml file in the current working directory. If there are no .env.toml in the current working directory, it will check in the following order:

1. Current working directory (./env.toml).
2. Parent directory (../.env.toml)
3. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/.config/dotem/.env.toml or $HOME/.config/dotem/.env.toml if $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is not defined.
4. $HOME/.env.toml

Default profiles

The [global] profile

The global profile is a profile that always gets loaded whenever you call dotem load [profile].

The [default] profile

If the profile in dotem load [profile] is empty, dotem will load the default profile. If a default profile is not set, it will raise an error.

Environment variable inheritance

dotem supports environment variable inheritance. Suppose we have the following .env.toml file:

[development]
API_KEY = "..."
DATABASE_URL = "..."

[development.zone-a]
ZONE_A_SECRET_USERNAME = "..."
ZONE_A_SECRET_PASSWORD = "..."

[development.zone-b]
ZONE_B_SECRET_USERNAME = "..."
ZONE_B_SECRET_PASSWORD = "..."

Running the command dotem load development.zone-a will load the parent's environment variables development and the child zone-a:

• API_KEY = "..."
• DATABASE_URL = "..."
• ZONE_A_SECRET_USERNAME = "..."
• ZONE_A_SECRET_PASSWORD = "..."

Note

If two of the same environment variable is set in the parent and child profile, dotem will use the environment variable set in the child's profile instead.

Contributing

Contributions, issues, and feature requests are welcome! Please feel free to submit a pull request or open an issue.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.