CLI Commands

Varlock provides a command-line interface for managing environment variables and secrets. This reference documents all available CLI commands.

Installation

See installation for instructions on how to install Varlock.

Commands

varlock init

CLI

varlock init

npm

npx varlock init

yarn

yarn dlx varlock init

pnpm

pnpm dlx varlock init

Scans your project for .env.* files and scans code for environment variable usage and creates a .env.schema file with the appropriate variables.

It will prompt you to mark items as required and sensitive and do its best to infer the type.

Tip

All further examples assume you are using the CLI, but the same commands can be run via your package manager if varlock is installed as a dependency. For example, varlock doctor can be run as pnpm exec varlock doctor.

varlock load

Loads environment variables from your .env.schema file and any additional .env.* files it finds colocated. This command ensures all required variables are validated per the schema.

varlock load [options]

Options:
  --format     # Format of output [pretty|json|env]
  --show-all   # Shows all items, not just the failing ones

Examples:

# Load and validate environment variables
varlock load

# Output validation results in JSON format
varlock load --format json

# Show all environment variables, including valid ones
varlock load --show-all

varlock run

Executes a command with the environment variables loaded from your schema. This is useful for running your application with the correct environment configuration.

varlock run <command> [options]

Options:
  --watch Watch for changes and reload the environment variables

Examples:

# Run a Node.js application
varlock run node app.js

# Run with environment variable watching enabled
varlock run --watch npm start

# Run a Python script
varlock run python script.py

varlock encrypt

Encrypts sensitive environment variables in your .env.* files and replaces the values with the encrypted values.

varlock encrypt [options]

Examples:

# Encrypt all sensitive variables in .env files
varlock encrypt

# Encrypt a specific .env file
varlock encrypt .env.production

varlock doctor

Diagnoses your environment configuration and provides recommendations for improvements. This command checks for common issues and best practices.

varlock doctor [options]

Examples:

# Run diagnostics on your environment setup
varlock doctor

# Check a specific .env file
varlock doctor .env.production

varlock help

Displays help information about Varlock commands and options.

varlock help [command]

Examples:
  varlock help             # Show general help
  varlock help init        # Show help for init command
  varlock init --help      # Alternative way to show command help