Node.js .env load problem file problem - variable is loading as undefined

Question

I'm building bot with discord.js. Everything was working just fine, but when I run code today I got error that TOKEN that I load from .env file is invalid. I checked it and TOKEN is "undefined". My folder tree look like it:

• Bot folder
  • Node.js file (bot.js)
  • .env file

I'm loading variables with:

const TOKEN = process.env.TOKEN;

In .env file I assign TOKEN like it.

TOKEN=my-bot-token

Any ideas? I was restarting my code editor (VS Code) few times. Exactly the same code worked some time ago...

Thanks!

Answer 1

const TOKEN = process.env.TOKEN; does not load anything from your .env. You need to use something like dotenv:

const { parsed, error } = require('dotenv').config();

if (error) {
  // Handle error
  throw error;
}

console.log(parsed);

Also notice:

As early as possible in your application, require and configure dotenv.

Edit: You can also set the path to your .env:

const { parsed, error } = require('dotenv').config({
  path: '/full/custom/path/to/your/env/vars'
});