🧭️ Using .env with typescript

Every time that I begin a new typescript project I need to search how to use process.env, I mean how to make environment variables available for code completion (intellisense), and then I question myself: "when typescript will infer the environment variables in .env". I'm sure that this feature will become some day.

Meanwhile we have this solution. To use this trick we need to have @types/node installed. Then create the following file in the root of the project.

declare global {
  namespace NodeJS {
    interface ProcessEnv {
      SPECIAL_TOKEN: string;
      NODE_ENV: 'development' | 'production';
      PORT?: number;
    }
  }
}

// If this file has no import/export statements (i.e. is a script)
// convert it into a module by adding an empty export statement.
export {}