Introduction

What is ENVNIX?

ENVNIX is a fast, production-ready Node.js CLI tool designed to simplify environment variable management. It generates .env.example files directly from your existing .env files while preserving the exact formatting, including blank lines and comments.

Key Features

• Preserves formatting & comments: Keeps your blank lines and full-line comments exactly where they belong.
• Inline comments support: Automatically detects and preserves # comments at the end of variable lines.
• export syntax support: Seamlessly handles .env files that use export KEY=VALUE syntax.
• Duplicate key detection: Warns you if you have accidentally defined the same environment variable multiple times.
• Alphabetical sorting: Optionally sorts variables (asc or desc) while keeping comments logically attached to their respective variables.
• Dry-run mode: Check outputs without writing to the disk.
• CI / Check mode: Ensure your examples are always in sync with your .env files on GitHub Actions.
• Watch mode: Regenerates .env.example on the fly when you modify .env files.
• Zero runtime dependencies (mostly): Uses only commander, chokidar and picocolors for maximum speed.
• Configurable: Fully customizable via envnix.config.json.

Why another env generator?

Other tools often strip comments, inline comments or blank lines, messing up well-documented configurations. envnix is built with a custom parser to retain your exact formatting and even understands complex quoting and inline comments.

Last updated on August 2, 2026