better-env
A Secure, Developer-Friendly Alternative to .env
16 followers
A Secure, Developer-Friendly Alternative to .env
16 followers
better-env is a CLI tool that manages environment variables securely using OpenPGP encryption. Store secrets once in a global encrypted store, link them to projects via commit-safebetter-env files, and load them at runtime, no plaintext to be found anywhere.
Hey Product Hunt! 👋
I'm Harish, the maker of better-env, and I'm excited to share it with you!
Have you ever thought about how fundamentally flawed .env files are? They're plaintext, easy to commit, scattered across projects, and a security risk waiting to happen. I've lost count of the times I've panicked after accidentally committing a `.env` file or struggled to manage secrets across multiple projects.
That's exactly why I built better-env: a secure CLI tool that manages environment variables using PGP encryption, eliminating plaintext secrets from your repos entirely.
🔐 What it does:
Global encrypted store - Store all your secrets once in a secure, PGP-encrypted location on your machine.
Zero plaintext - No .env files needed in your projects. Secrets decrypt only at runtime when you need them.
Commit-safe - `.better-env` files contain only key names (no values), so they're completely safe to commit.
Per-project selection - Choose which secrets each project uses with simple commands.
⚡ Why it's useful:
Never accidentally commit secrets again - even if you commit `.better-env`, it has no sensitive data.
Centralized secret management - one encrypted store for all your projects.
Works seamlessly with your workflow - use bnv shell or bnv run to inject secrets.
No complex infrastructure - just a simple CLI tool that encrypts locally.
🚀 Try better-env now - It's Free and Open Source!
Check out the Github Repository
Check out the Documentation
Would love your feedback, thoughts, or feature requests. I'm building this for developers like you 😃, and your input means a lot. Let's talk! 🙌
Cheers,
Harish
Swytchcode
Amazing. It's a great idea, and yes, .env is really problematic.
I'll try this one out