Pull the ENV variables from a Vercel project using the CLI
I used to copy-paste my ENV variables from the hosting. More often than not a tiny error caused the whole application to fail, especially when working with keys.
Today I’ve learned that Vercel CLI allows you to pull all the ENV variables from your project. I’ll never fill that file manually again!
How to do it
I’ll show you how to do it by sharing the steps I’ve applied to a new project I’m working on called
cheese-store.Install the Vercel CLI globally
Vercel is my main hosting solution for new projects, so I just installed the CLI globally.
npm i -g vercel
Link to your repository
Simply run
vercel link and follow the steps from the CLI to link your local repository with your vercel project. This is what the output looked like for me.>> fran@tpx1:~/code/cheese-store$ vercel linkVercel CLI 24.1.0> > No existing credentials found. Please log in:> Log in to Vercel github> Success! GitHub authentication complete for your_mail_address@mail_provider.com? Set up “~/code/cheese-store”? [Y/n] y? Which scope should contain your project? Francisco Moretti? Found project “franciscomoretti/cheese-store”. Link to it? [Y/n] y✅ Linked to franciscomoretti/cheese-store (created .vercel)
Pull the ENV variables
Now that Vercel is linked you can download the ENV variables just by running
vercel env pull.>> fran@tpx1:~/code/cheese-store$ vercel env pullVercel CLI 24.1.0Downloading Development Environment Variables for Project cheese-store✅ Created .env file [492ms]
You can also add a new variable with another commands. Check the documentation for Vercel CLI env.
The result
And just like that, all the environment variables were created and completed in my local repository. Pretty cool, right?
