# JSON to Env

A Backend programmer who has lost their device in the past will understand the stress it takes to re-create the development env files for your projects. 😢

Apart from sad scenarios like this,  there is always **no sync** in changes that happen with env files amongst **teams**. In some cases, you will probably run the program first or check an env declaration file if it exists for guidelines on how to create your env file. These guidelines do not include the env **values** or **API keys** 🤯

These situations can be prevented by using the [`jsonbank-env`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/jsonbank-env) cli package.


##### Requirements 

-  Nodejs Installed.
-  Jsonbank account
-  Jsonbank `public key`.


### Getting Started.

Create a new **private** project on jsonbank or use any existing **private** project.
For this post, we will be using a new project we created called **`envs`**

We will also create 3 new files 

- default.json
- default-array.json
- prod.json

default.json
```json
{
  "NODE_ENV": "development",
  "PORT": 3000,
  "SSL": null,
  "DB_HOST": "localhost",
  "DB_USER": "root",
  "DB_PASS": "root",
  "DB_NAME": "test"
}
```
default-array.json
```json
[
  {
    "NODE_ENV": "development",
    "PORT": 3000
  },
  {
    "SSL": null
  },
  {
    "DB_HOST": "localhost",
    "DB_USER": "root",
    "DB_PASS": "root",
    "DB_NAME": "test"
  }
]
```
prod.json
```json
{
  "NODE_ENV": "production",
  "PORT": 80,
  "SSL": true,
  "DB_HOST": "localhost",
  "DB_USER": "root",
  "DB_PASS": "root",
  "DB_NAME": "test"
}
```

So your project menu should be looking like this

![Screenshot 2022-10-29 at 9.50.24 PM.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1667076829538/YsXmQO8o0.png align="left")



### Generate Config File
Navigate to your local working directory where you want the envs to be imported.

Run 
```sh
npx jsonbank-env init
```
This will create your `jsonbank.env.json` file. This file is where you will set your public key and remote paths to your env files.

#### Get your Public key

Create a new application on jsonbank and you will be given your **`public`** and **`private`** keys. Put the public key in your `jsonbank.env.json`

#### Set your remote files 
Set your config file to look like this
```json
{
  "public_key": "Your public key",
  "envs": {
      "dev": "envs/default.json",
      "dev:formatted: "envs/default-array.json",
      "prod": "envs/prod.json"
   }
}
```

### Fetch Env Files
Get the `dev` env file and save it as `.env`
```sh
npx jsonbank-env dev .env
```
Your generated env file should look like

```env
NODE_ENV="development"
PORT=3000
SSL=
DB_HOST="localhost"
DB_USER="root"
DB_PASS="root"
DB_NAME="test"
```

Get the `dev:formatted` env file and save it as `.neat.env`
```sh
npx jsonbank-env dev:formatted .neat.env
```
Your generated env file should look like this with neat spacing because the json content is an `array of objects`. Each object in the array is automatically separated with a new line.

```env
NODE_ENV="development"
PORT=3000

SSL=

DB_HOST="localhost"
DB_USER="root"
DB_PASS="root"
DB_NAME="test"
```

Now try the last one for `prod` env file. it should generate an env with `NODE_ENV=production`


We hope you find this service as useful as we did.
For more info, see the [npm package documentation](https://www.npmjs.com/package/jsonbank-env)