Accessing Environment Variables in TypeScript Serverless Files

A comprehensive guide to accessing environment variables in TypeScript Serverless configurations, ensuring seamless CI and local development integration.
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How to Access Environment Variables in TypeScript Serverless Files

If you're diving into TypeScript and Serverless frameworks, you might find yourself struggling with accessing environment variables. This is a common issue for developers who wish to manage configurations efficiently across different working environments, such as continuous integration (CI) systems and local development setups. In this guide, we'll outline a straightforward solution to read environment variables in your serverless application.

Understanding the Problem

When working with environment variables in a TypeScript Serverless framework, you might encounter an issue where the variables do not interpolate correctly. Instead of the expected value, you might see the variable as ${env.CONFIG_TABLE}, which can be confusing and can lead to errors in your application.

This problem typically arises when trying to define environment settings directly in your task handler definitions. For example, you might be trying to set an environment variable in the following way:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

This approach does not actually read the value of CONFIG_TABLE from your environment and instead just retains the string format.

The Solution

Step-by-Step Implementation

Modify Your Configuration

Change your environment variable definition from:

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To:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Ensure .env File is Loaded

Ensure you have a .env file set up at the root of your project with the necessary variables. Here's an example of what the content might look like:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Use dotenv in Your Serverless Configuration

To ensure the environment variables are loaded when your Serverless application starts, add the dotenv package in your project if you haven't already:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Then, incorporate it in your serverless configuration file:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Summary

Now, you can confidently reference your environment variables in the handler functions and avoid the frustration of empty or unparsed values.

Implementing this change in your serverless applications will lead to a more robust and flexible structure, enabling efficient development and deployment processes.

If you have any more questions or run into any issues, feel free to drop a comment below!