Autoenv: Directory-based Environments

Magic per-project shell environments.

What is it?

If a directory contains an .env file, it will automatically be executed when you cd into it. And, if a directory contains an .env.leave file (and AUTOENV_ENABLE_LEAVE is a non-empty string), the file will automatically be executed when cd'ing away from the directory that contains that file.

This is great for...

• auto-activating virtualenvs
• auto-deactivating virtualenvs
• project-specific environment variables
• making millions

You can also nest envs within each other. How awesome is that!?

When executing, autoenv, will walk up the directories until the mount point and execute all .env files beginning at the top.

Usage

Follow the white rabbit:

$ echo "echo 'whoa'" > ./project/.env
$ cd ./project
whoa

Installation (automated)

Install with cURL:

curl -#fLo- 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hyperupcall/autoenv/main/scripts/install.sh' | sh

Install with wget:

wget --show-progress -o /dev/null -O- 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hyperupcall/autoenv/main/scripts/install.sh' | sh

If you encounter some variant of a "curl: command not found" or "wget: command not found" error, please install either cURL or wget (with your package manager) and try again.

Installation (manual)

When installing manually, you first install autoenv with either Homebrew, npm, or Git. Then, you run a command to ensure autoenv is loaded when you open a terminal (this command depends on your default shell).

Installation Method

Note that depending on your shell and operating system, you may need to write to .zprofile instead of .zshrc, or write to .bash_profile instead of .bashrc (or visa-versa).

Using Homebrew

Prefer this if you're running macOS. Homebrew must be installed.

$ brew install 'autoenv'

# For Zsh shell (on Linux or macOS)
$ printf '%s\n' "source $(brew --prefix autoenv)/activate.sh" >> "${ZDOTDIR:-$HOME}/.zprofile"

# For Bash shell (on Linux)
$ printf '%s\n' "source $(brew --prefix autoenv)/activate.sh" >> ~/.bashrc

# For Bash shell (on macOS)
$ printf '%s\n' "source $(brew --prefix autoenv)/activate.sh" >> ~/.bash_profile

Using npm

Prefer this if you're running Linux or an unsupported version of macOS. npm must be installed (usually through NodeJS).

$ npm install -g '@hyperupcall/autoenv'

# For Zsh shell (on Linux or macOS)
$ printf '%s\n' "source $(npm root -g)/@hyperupcall/autoenv/activate.sh" >> "${ZDOTDIR:-$HOME}/.zprofile"

# For Bash shell (on Linux)
$ printf '%s\n' "source $(npm root -g)/@hyperupcall/autoenv/activate.sh" >> ~/.bashrc

# For Bash shell (on macOS)
$ printf '%s\n' "source $(npm root -g)/@hyperupcall/autoenv/activate.sh" >> ~/.bash_profile

Using Git

Use this if you cannot install with Homebrew or npm.

$ git clone 'https://github.com/hyperupcall/autoenv' ~/.autoenv

# For Zsh shell (on Linux or macOS)
$ printf '%s\n' "source ~/.autoenv/activate.sh" >> "${ZDOTDIR:-$HOME}/.zprofile"

# For Bash shell (on Linux)
$ printf '%s\n' "source ~/.autoenv/activate.sh" >> ~/.bashrc

# For Bash shell (on macOS)
$ printf '%s\n' "source ~/.autoenv/activate.sh" >> ~/.bash_profile

Configuration

Before sourceing activate.sh, you can set the following variables:

• AUTOENV_AUTH_FILE: Files authorized to be sourced; defaults to ~/.autoenv_authorized if it exists, otherwise, ~/.local/state/autoenv/authorized_list
• AUTOENV_NOTAUTH_FILE: Files not authorized to be sourced; defaults to ~/.autoenv_not_authorized if it exists, otherwise, ~/.local/state/autoenv/not_authorized_list
• AUTOENV_ENV_FILENAME: Name of the .env file; defaults to .env
• AUTOENV_LOWER_FIRST: Set this variable to a non-empty string to flip the order of .env files executed
• AUTOENV_ENV_LEAVE_FILENAME: Name of the .env.leave file; defaults to .env.leave
• AUTOENV_ENABLE_LEAVE: Set this to a non-empty string in order to enable source env when leaving
• AUTOENV_ASSUME_YES: Set this variable to a non-empty string to silently authorize the initialization of new environments
• AUTOENV_VIEWER: Program used to display env files prior to authorization; defaults to cat
• AUTOENV_PRESERVE_CD: Set this variable to a non-empty string to prevent the cd builtin from being overridden (to active autoenv, you must invoke autoenv_init within a cd function of your own)

We recommend setting the following configuration variables:

AUTOENV_ENABLE_LEAVE=yes
AUTOENV_VIEWER=cat

These options are not set by default as to conform to the expectations of backwards-compatible behavior.

API

Inside the .env file, two environment variables can be accessed:

• AUTOENV_CUR_FILE - The file being sourced
• AUTOENV_CUR_DIR - Equivalent to dirname "$AUTOENV_CUR_FILE"

Shells

autoenv is tested on:

• Bash
• Zsh
• Dash
• Fish is supported by autoenv_fish
• More to come

Disclaimer

Autoenv overrides cd (unless AUTOENV_PRESERVE_CD is set to a non-empty string). If you already do this, invoke autoenv_init within your custom cd after sourcing activate.sh.

If you define a cd alias, autoenv will (properly) show an error except when using Zsh. We recommend removing any aliases to cd! (unalias cd).

If you are using dash, autoenv will work. However, dash does not support builtin. As a result, in dash, autoenv invokes chdir instead of cd to prevent infinite loops.

Autoenv can be disabled via unset -f cd if you experience I/O issues with certain file systems, particularly those that are FUSE-based (such as smbnetfs).

Other info

To uninstall autoenv, see ./docs/uninstall.md.

To update autoenv, see ./docs/updating.md.

Attributions

Autoenv was originally created by @kennethreitz. Later, ownership was transfered to @inishchith. As of August 22nd, 2021, Edwin Kofler (@hyperupcall) owns and maintains the project.