env-diff-now

Compare .env against .env.example and catch missing, empty, or extra environment variables — before they break your build.

Why

Every team has that moment: someone adds a new required env var, forgets to tell anyone, and a teammate's app silently breaks (or worse, deploys with a missing secret). env-diff-now catches this in seconds.

Install

npm install --save-dev env-diff-now

Or run without installing:

npx env-diff-now

Usage

env-diff-now

✖ Missing (2):
  - DATABASE_URL
  - STRIPE_SECRET_KEY

⚠ Empty (1):
  - API_TIMEOUT

ℹ Extra — present in .env but not in .env.example (1):
  - DEBUG_MODE

Options

Flag	Description	Default
--env <path>	Path to actual env file	.env
--example <path>	Path to example env file	.env.example
--strict	Also fail (exit 1) on empty vars, not just missing	false
--quiet, -q	Only print output when there's a problem	false
--help, -h	Show help
--version, -v	Show version

Exit Codes

• 0 — all good
• 1 — missing (or empty, with --strict) variables found
• 2 — .env.example file not found

Use in CI

# .github/workflows/ci.yml
- name: Check env vars
  run: npx env-diff-now --strict

Use in postinstall

{
  "scripts": {
    "postinstall": "env-diff-now --quiet || echo 'Check your .env file — see above'"
  }
}

Tip: postinstall runs even without a .env present on fresh clones — env-diff-now handles that gracefully and just reports every example var as missing, guiding new contributors to set things up correctly.

License

MIT