Environment Variables

Scoping

Env vars are scoped to environments: production, preview (can be branch-specific), and development.

Variables can be plain text or sensitive (encrypted, not readable after creation).

Managing Env Vars

bash

vercel env add API_KEY production              # add to production
vercel env ls                                  # list all
vercel env update API_KEY production           # update value
vercel env rm API_KEY preview                  # remove from preview
echo "secret" | vercel env add TOKEN production  # pipe value from stdin

Note: environment is a positional argument, not a flag.

Pulling Locally

bash

vercel env pull                   # writes to .env.local
vercel env pull .env.development  # writes to custom file

vercel pull also downloads env vars along with project config.

Running with Env Vars

Inject env vars into a subprocess without writing to a file:

bash

vercel env run -- npm test
vercel env run -e preview -- next dev

The -- separator is required before the command.