import SampleEnv from '/docs/snippets/sample-env.md'

Environment configuration and variables#

Strapi provides specific environment variable names. Defining them in an environment file (e.g., .env) will make these variables and their values available in your code.

Additionally, specific configurations for different environments can be created.

Strapi's environment variables {#strapi}#

Strapi provides the following environment variables:

Example .env file#

Set these environment variables for secure authentication with sessions management configuration:

# Admin authentication
ADMIN_JWT_SECRET=your-admin-secret-key

# Cookie domain (optional)
ADMIN_COOKIE_DOMAIN=yourdomain.com

# Users & Permissions JWT secret
JWT_SECRET=your-content-api-secret-key

# Users & Permissions session management
UP_JWT_MANAGEMENT=refresh # or 'legacy-support'
UP_SESSIONS_ACCESS_TTL=604800 # 1 week in seconds
UP_SESSIONS_MAX_REFRESH_TTL=2592000 # 30 days in seconds
UP_SESSIONS_IDLE_REFRESH_TTL=604800 # 7 days in seconds
UP_SESSIONS_HTTPONLY=false # true for HTTP-only cookies
UP_SESSIONS_COOKIE_NAME=strapi_up_refresh
UP_SESSIONS_COOKIE_SAMESITE=lax
UP_SESSIONS_COOKIE_PATH=/
UP_SESSIONS_COOKIE_SECURE=false # true in production

Environment configurations#

Configurations can be created with the following naming and structure conventions: ./config/env/{environment}/{filename}. This is useful when you need specific static configurations for specific environments and using environment variables is not the best solution.

These configurations will be merged into the base configurations defined in the ./config folder.
The environment is based on the NODE_ENV environment variable, which defaults to development.

When starting Strapi with NODE_ENV=production it will load the configuration from ./config/* and ./config/env/production/*. Everything defined in the production configuration will override the default configuration. In combination with environment variables this pattern becomes really powerful.

For instance, using the following configuration files will give you various options to start the server:

module.exports = {
  host: '127.0.0.1',
};

module.exports = ({ env }) => ({
  host: env('HOST', '0.0.0.0'),
});

export default ({ env }) => ({
  host: '127.0.0.1',
});

export default ({ env }) => ({
  host: env('HOST', '0.0.0.0'),
});

With these configuration files the server will start on various ports depending on the environment variables passed:

yarn start # uses host 127.0.0.1
NODE_ENV=production yarn start # uses host defined in .env. If not defined, uses 0.0.0.0
HOST=10.0.0.1 NODE_ENV=production yarn start # uses host 10.0.0.1

To learn deeper about how to use environment variables in your code, please refer to the following guide: