Environment variables

Three ways to get environment variables into your processes — pick per case, they combine freely.

Inline with —env#

For one-off or secret values, pass them on the command line (repeatable):

pboss start server.ts --name api --env NODE_ENV=production --env API_KEY=xxx

The same field exists in ecosystem files as env: { ... }.

pboss can store environment variables per process and inject them on start — values live in the daemon’s state, not in your shell history or repo.

pboss env set my-api DATABASE_URL postgres://localhost/mydb

List all stored environment variables for a process:

pboss env get my-api

Remove one variable — or all of them:

pboss env delete my-api DATABASE_URL
pboss env delete my-api

Load environment variables from .env-style files at start:

pboss start server.ts --env-file .env.production

This is the natural fit for twelve-factor deployments: keep .env.production out of git, load it at start, and combine with stored vars when needed.

Flags given to the child process after -- and --env values both reach the process; explicit --env entries are applied to its environment.
Per-app runner overrides don’t need env vars — see --interpreter for pinning a process to one runtime (e.g. --interpreter node).
For Node.js runtime flags, use --node-args instead of env vars: --node-args "--max-old-space-size=4096".