To have secret information accessible in environment variables (such as the database connection credentials,
for example), we store these variables in an uncommitted .env file at the root of the project. Then, we use
package dotenv to load it in ormconfig.ts, and put its contents in
environment variables, ones we can access with process.env.ENV_VAR in the code.
For example, if you want an environment variable WELL_GUARDED_SECRET with value imasecret, add this line
to your .env file:
WELL_GUARDED_SECRET=imasecretYou can then use this variable with:
console.log(`My secret is ${process.env.WELL_GUARDED_SECRET}!`);Because we use commands with TypeScript files in development (that we transpile using ts-node), and with
JavaScript files in production (when the files have already been built in ./dist/), we have to tell TypeORM
which situation we're in (so that it looks for TypeScript files instead of JavaScript ones in development for
entities and migrations). We do that using the IS_TS_NODE environment variable set to true. This environment
variable will be automatically set if you run something with the command ts-node, but if you don't (for
example when you use the command jest, with the underlying ts-jest, or when you use the formula node --require ts-node/register), you will have to specify it yourself with IS_TS_NODE=true [command]. If you
are sure to never run any plain JavaScript command, you can also set the IS_TS_NODE environment variable
to true in your .env file.