envdrift 🌱⚡

CLI that detects drift between .env* files in a project — catches the case where a variable is set in .env.local but missing from .env.production (or vice versa) before it causes a runtime surprise.

It compares keys only, never values — no secrets are read into memory or printed. 🔒

📦 Install / run

Published as a scoped package — install globally and run as envdrift:

npm install -g @lorenzopant/envdrift
envdrift [dir]

Or run it ad-hoc without installing:

npx @lorenzopant/envdrift [dir]

From source

pnpm install
pnpm run build
node dist/index.js [dir]

Or during development, skip the build step:

pnpm dev [dir]

[dir] defaults to the current directory.

🚀 Usage

envdrift [dir] [options]

Option	Description
--depth <n>	max directory depth to scan (default: 5)
--autofix	append missing keys (empty value) to files where they're absent, marked with a # --- added by envdrift --autofix --- comment
--md [path]	write a Markdown drift report to <path> (default: envdrift-report.md)
--fail-on-drift	exit with code 1 when drift is found (CI/CD gate)

Example

$ envdrift .

Scanned 3 env file(s):
  - .env (4 keys)
  - .env.local (4 keys)
  - .env.production (7 keys)

Drift found in 3 key(s):

Legend:
  F1 = .env
  F2 = .env.local
  F3 = .env.production

                F1  F2  F3
  ------------  --  --  --
  GITHUB_TOKEN  ✗   ✓   ✗
  RATE_LIMIT_MAX ✗  ✗   ✓
  SENTRY_DSN    ✗   ✗   ✓

By default, exit code is always 0 — envdrift reports drift without failing your build. Pass --fail-on-drift to exit with code 1 when drift is found, turning it into a CI/CD gate:

envdrift . --fail-on-drift

Use --md to produce a file you can attach to CI artifacts or PRs if you want drift to be visible in review regardless of whether the build fails.

⚙️ How it works

1. Scan — recursively find .env* files (skips node_modules, .git, build output dirs).
2. Parse — read each file's keys via dotenv (values discarded).
3. Diff — build a presence matrix across all files; any key not present in every file counts as drift.
4. Report — render as a terminal matrix, optionally a Markdown file, and optionally autofix by appending missing keys with empty values.

🗂️ Project layout

src/
  scanner.ts   find .env* files on disk
  parser.ts    parse a file into its set of keys
  diff.ts      build the drift report (presence matrix)
  report.ts    render the report (terminal matrix, Markdown)
  autofix.ts   append missing keys to files
  index.ts     CLI entry point (commander)

🤝 Contributing

Contributions welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md for setup, dev workflow, and conventions. Please follow our Code of Conduct.

📄 License

MIT © Lorenzo Pantano