Environment variables and secrets

Setting variables

• When you create an app: open Environment variables, then add them One by one or Paste .env. The paste box takes NAME=value or NAME: value, one a line, and skips comments and export. The app’s first release starts with them.
• Afterwards: on the environment’s Variables tab, enter a name and value and choose Add. Setting a name that exists replaces its value.

# comments are skipped
DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:pass@db.example.com:5432/app
export APP_KEY=base64:…
MAIL_FROM: hello@example.com

Each environment has its own variables: production and staging do not share them. Static sites have none, since nothing runs.

When a change takes effect

At once. Saving or removing a variable restarts the running app with the new set; nothing is rebuilt. Every deploy starts with the current values.

Names and values

• Names are letters, digits and _, and do not start with a digit, like DATABASE_URL.
• A value cannot contain a newline, a carriage return or a NUL. To pass a multi-line value such as a PEM key, encode it (as base64, say) and decode it in your app.
• One invalid variable refuses the whole change, so nothing is half-saved.

How they are stored

Each environment has its own encryption key, and each value is sealed with AES-256-GCM as it is saved. The dashboard only ever lists names. To see a value again, look where you keep the original: homeport cannot show it to you either.

Variables homeport sets

PORT, HOST, HOSTNAME and PATH are set by homeport and cannot be overridden. Values you set for system names such as HOME, USER, SHELL, LANG or TERM are not passed to your app.

In homeport.yaml’s run, only $PORT and $HOST can be used. Read every other variable from the environment in your code.