Create .Env File GitHub Action

About

A GitHub Action to create an '.env' file with GitHub Secrets. This is useful when you are creating artifacts that contain values stored in GitHub Secrets. This creates a file with variables that are defined in the Action config.

Usage

The Action looks for environment variables that start with envkey_ and creates an '.env' file with them. These are defined in the with section of the Action config. Here is an example of it in use:

name: Create envfile

on: [ push ]

jobs:

  create-envfile:
 
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
 
    steps:
    - name: Make envfile
      uses: SpicyPizza/[email protected]
      with:
        envkey_DEBUG: false
        envkey_SOME_API_KEY: "123456abcdef"
        envkey_SECRET_KEY: ${{ secrets.SECRET_KEY }}
        envkey_VARIABLE: ${{ vars.SOME_ACTION_VARIABLE }}
        some_other_variable: foobar
        directory: <directory_name>
        file_name: .env
        fail_on_empty: false
        sort_keys: false

Inputs

In the example above, there are several key/value pairs that will be added to the '.env' file:

Name	Description
envkey_DEBUG, envkey_SOME_API_KEY	These values can be whatever, and they will be added to the '.env' file as DEBUG and SOME_API_KEY .
envkey_SECRET_KEY	This one will use a secret stored in the repository's GitHub Secrets, and add it to the file as SECRET_KEY
directory (Optional)	This key will set the directory in which you want to create env file. Important: cannot start with /. Action will fail if the specified directory doesn't exist.
file_name (Optional)	Set the name of the output '.env' file. Defaults to .env
fail_on_empty (Optional)	If set to true, the Action will fail if any env key is empty. Default to false.
sort_keys (Optional)	If set to true, the Action will sort the keys in the output '.env' file. Default to false.

Assuming that the GitHub Secret that was used is password123, the '.env' file that is created from the config above would contain:

DEBUG=false
SOME_API_KEY="123456abcdef"
SECRET_KEY=password123

Multiline Secrets

This Action supports multiline secrets, as described in the nodejs dotenv readme.

You may have a secret that requres multiple lines, like a private key. You can store this in a GitHub Secret, and use it as any other secret in this Action:

PRIVATE_KEY="-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
...
Kh9NV...
...
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----"

It will get stored as a single line in the '.env' file. This line will start and end with a " character, and will contain \n characters to represent the newlines:

PRIVATE_KEY="-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----\nKh9NV...\n-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----\n"

Potential Issues

Warnings

When the Action runs, it will show Warning: Unexpected input(s) .... This is because GitHub is expecting all the potential input variables to be defined by the Action's definition. You can read more about it in this issue.