When running a build of an SST app in Seed, it appears to be loading a dotenv file named

.env.local

despite that not being the stage name. I can see in the logs lines such as:

[dotenv][DEBUG] "CUSTOMER" is already defined in `process.env` and will not be overwritten

I have the env vars set in Seed so it’s correctly not overwriting, however, my understanding is that, when in Seed, the dotenv plugin shouldn’t load a

.env.local

file.

.env.local

is a special env file with local overrides that’s normally not git commited.

Moved that doc to a different page https://docs.serverless-stack.com/environment-variables#other-environment-variables

Right, we typically have it the other way around where stage based env files aren't committed but the local version is as it's a way for any developer to pick up a project and be able to run it locally. It's not a big deal though, we can share that file in other ways

Yeah AFAIK it's a convention that dotenv uses. Their interpretation is that the

.local

files get their values from the machine they are running in. Or in the case of a CI, the build machine is going to be setting those environment variables. I'm personally still used to not committing these files in Git. But either way works as long as no sensitive info is getting committed 😬

OK, well as long as we know. Maybe we have this backwards!