Import a .env file

An import reads KEY=value pairs from a .env file and adds them to an environment. Use it to bring an existing project into envite, or to pick up changes someone made by hand on a server.

Import

1. On Environments, select the environment and press i.

2. Choose where to read from:

   • Local file — type its File path. ~ and paths starting with ~/ stand for your home directory.
   • Environment target — the file at the deploy target of the environment, on its server.

3. Press Enter. Envite reads the file (at most 1 MiB) and shows the Import preview.

4. Review the pairs, in the order of the file. Each row shows the key (# KEY for a commented pair), the value as ********, and what will happen:

   • create — a new variable at the end of the General section, marked secret, with the state read from the file;
   • skip — the default for a key a variable of the environment already has;
   • overwrite — replaces the value and state of that existing variable, in its own section.

5. Press s on a key that already exists to switch it between skip and overwrite. Press v to see the value of the selected pair.

6. Press Enter to import. Import result lists the keys created, overwritten, unchanged and skipped.

The preview with your choices is the confirmation: there is no second question. Everything is imported in one step, or nothing on a failure. Esc cancels the preview.

What is imported

Only key/value pairs. The preview says so, and that keys not in uppercase were uppercased; everything else in the file — comments, blank lines, invalid lines — is discarded without being listed or counted.

• KEY=value and export KEY=value become enabled variables.
• # KEY=value becomes a commented variable. A descriptive comment that happens to look like an entry (# HOST=10.0.0.1) is read as one too.
• Double-quoted, single-quoted and multi-line values are supported.
• When a key appears several times, the last value wins.

The exact rules are in the .env file format.

Imported variables are always created as secret. Uncheck Secret in the detail of a variable whose value does not need masking.

After the import

The import is recorded in the history of the environment. Move the new variables from General to their sections with the section picker of the variable detail (see Organize variables).