Allow Nx, by default, to parse env files by target configuration name

[Hywie]

• I'd be willing to implement this feature (contributing guide)

Description

Currently, Nx uses the target name when searching for env files but does not take into account the configuration of the target.

The current implementation looks for:

1. .env
2. .local.env
3. .env.local
4. .[target-name].env
5. .env.[target-name]
6. apps/my-app/.env
7. apps/my-app/.local.env
8. apps/my-app/.env.local
9. apps/my-app/.[target-name].env
10. apps/my-app/.env.[target-name]

I suggest we include the configuration name when looking for env files. That would allow us to look for:

1. .env
2. .local.env
3. .env.local
4. .[target-name].env
5. .[target-name].[target-configuration-name].env
6. .env.[target-name]
7. .env.[target-name].[target-configuration-name]
8. apps/my-app/.env
9. apps/my-app/.local.env
10. apps/my-app/.env.local
11. apps/my-app/.[target-name].env
12. apps/my-app/.[target-name].[target-configuration-name].env
13. apps/my-app/.env.[target-name]
14. apps/my-app/.env.[target-name].[target-configuration-name]

Motivation

We often want to run a task that has multiple configurations with the ability for each configuration to have its own envFile.

For example, you may have multiple configurations (Testing, Staging, Production) for run-app. We want each configuration to use a different env file so they use and point at different URLs. We are currently unable to do this. To acheive something similar, we have to either:

• Duplicate the tasks, but just change the target name. E.g. run-app-in-testing, run-app-in-staging etc.
• Do some transformation on the .env file before running the task

If envFiles with both the target and configuration name were automatically picked up and parsed. It would solve a few issues around unnecessarily having multiple targets when configurations should be used or the need to transform env files.

It looks like this idea has been raised within other issues/ feat requests but not implemented:

• Adding envFile argument in nx serve / build for custom env loading #7729
• Nx can't get the correct .env parameter for react native. #13685

Suggested Implementation

A change to getDotenvVariablesForTask() in packages/nx/src/tasks-runner/forked-process-task-runner.ts to include the above search patterns. This would allow the configuration name to be used automatically in all executables.

Alternate Implementations

Another alternative is for Nx packages to extend their options to allow an env file path.

Please do shout though if I have missed something and there is a better alternative than making a change to the task runner process, I'm not familiar with the Nx code base.

[Hywie]

Thank you @AgentEnder for making that change

[github-actions]

This issue has been closed for more than 30 days. If this issue is still occuring, please open a new issue with more recent context.