dotenv-seeder

A GitHub Action to seed environment variables into a env file by merging an example file with user-provided values in JSON format. Useful for CI/CD pipelines or setting up local environments consistently.

Features

• Flexible – Supports any file name or path, not just regular .env and .env.example
• Clean – Preserves structure, handles empty lines, and quotes values when needed
• Simple – No magic, no complex config — just JSON input and a reliable result

Usage

name: CI Workflow

on: push

jobs:
  main:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Seed environment variables
        uses: scrlkx/dotenv-seeder@v1
        with:
          target: ".env"
          example: ".env.example"
          variables: |
            {
              "API_KEY": "{{ secrets.API_KEY }}",
              "DEBUG": "true",
              "BASE_URL": "{{ env.BASE_URL }}"
            }

Inputs

Name	Description	Required	Default
target	The environment file to update or create	No	.env
example	The template file to copy from if the target file does not exist	No	.env.example
variables	A JSON object containing environment variables to inject	Yes	—
skipExample	If true, does not use the example file to create the target file	No	False

License

GPL-3.0 License - see the LICENSE file for details