envgaurd

A lightweight utility for safe and readable access to environment variables in Node.js and TypeScript/JavaScript projects. It ensures that required environment variables are set and provides optional fallback values.

📦 Installation

You can install envgaurd using your preferred package manager:

# npm
npm install envgaurd

# pnpm
pnpm add envgaurd

# yarn
yarn add envgaurd

🚀 Usage

Basic Usage

import { env } from "envgaurd";

import env from "envgaurd";

import { env } from "envgaurd";

const dbHost = env("DB_HOST"); // throws if DB_HOST is not defined

With Default Value (Fallback)

const dbPort = env("DB_PORT", 5432); // uses 5432 if DB_PORT is not defined

When Not Set and No Fallback

env("MISSING_VAR");
// ❌ Throws: Environment variable MISSING_VAR is not set

🔍 API Reference

env(name: string, alt?: any): string | any

| Parameter | Type | Description | | --------- | -------- | --------------------------------------------------------- | | name | string | The name of the environment variable to read. | | alt | any | (Optional) A fallback value if the variable is undefined. |

Returns:

• The value of the environment variable as a string (or fallback alt if provided).

Throws:

• Error if the variable is not set and no fallback is given.

🧠 Why use envgaurd?

• ✅ Avoid silent failures due to missing environment variables
• ✅ Cleaner and safer code
• ✅ Lightweight with zero dependencies

🛠️ TypeScript Support

This package is written in TypeScript and provides full type definitions out of the box.

📄 License

MIT License

🤝 Contributing

Pull requests and issues are welcome. If you'd like to contribute, feel free to open an issue or PR.

✨ Example .env file

DB_HOST=localhost
DB_PORT=5432

Use with a .env loader like dotenv for local development:

import "dotenv/config";
import { env } from "envgaurd";

const host = env("DB_HOST");

💬 Feedback

Have ideas to improve envgaurd? Open an issue or reach out — all suggestions welcome!