Environment Variables

Environment Variables #

List Of Variables #

Necessary #

Variable Name Description
PORT Port for local server (This might not be required while deploying).
DB_ADDR MongoDB Connection URI String. Read Also
SECRET Secret key to hash JWT tokens.

Optional #

Variable Name Default Description
RATE_LIMIT Infinite Limit number of requests per minute allowed to a certain IP
DEPTH_LIMIT Infinite Limit depth of nesting in a query

If your using bash, run LC_ALL=C head /dev/urandom | tr -dc A-Za-z0-9 | head -c32 to generate a 32 char long random string for SECRET

How To Set Variables #

The method to set environment variables depends mostly on what system you are using / where the server is deployed. But here are a few ways to set env variables:

Docker Compose #

Make required changes in docker-compose.yml

Local System #

CLI #

You can pass the variables with the command to start server

For Example: $ RATE_LIMIT=5 npm run dev

Using a .env file #

You can also set environment variables in a .env file (recommended).

  • Create a file named .env in root directory of your server.
  • Insert the key-value pairs.

For Example:

PORT = 8080
DB_ADDR = <your MongoDB URI>
SECRET = thisismysecretkey
RATE_LIMIT = 10
DEPTH_LIMIT = 3

Deployment Server #

The method to set environment variables differs for every hosting provider, but most probably you can set variables from the dashboard of your hosting provider.

For example, in Heroku you can do this.

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