Supabase with Node.js

Learn how to configure Supabase with Dotenv Vault in a simple Node.js web app. This tutorial assumes you are already familiar with .env files and know how to sync them.

Initial setup

First, you will need to initialize your Supabase setup, so if you don’t have one already go ahead and create it.

Since the core functions you will be performing are only available via CLI, go ahead and get that from Supabase too.

Considering Supabase uses Docker to deploy local instances, make sure you have the Docker Daemon running before you attempt your interactions.

Once you’ve taken care of this, start a local Supabase instance via the CLI, then log into your Supabase account from the same location.

Lastly, link your local instance with the remote database, so your settings are applied there too.

CLI

supabase start
supabase login
supabase link --project-ref YourSupabaseProjectRefHere

Package installation

Once ready, proceed by installing the dotenv package with npm.

CLI

npm install dotenv --save

Create an index.js file and reference the Vault package inside it as early as possible to skip on any conflicts that may arise.

Node.js

// index.js
require('dotenv').config()
console.log(process.env) // for debugging purposes. remove when ready.

Build the Vault

Confirm you are logged in and your Vault is synced locally by running npx dotenv-vault pull production. Once ready, proceed by building your Vault with npx dotenv-vault build.

CLI

npx dotenv-vault build

Once Vault has finished building, it will provide you with access to its decryption keys, which you can use to interact with protected environment variables with ease.

To retrieve a key, just input npx dotenv-vault keys, followed by your preferred environment, like production, for example.

You can do the same with other environments such as development and ci.

The outcome of this will be a long URL being returned. You will immediately recognize it as it always starts with dotenv://:key and ends in ?environment= with the environment you have chosen.

CLI

npx dotenv-vault keys ci
remote:   Listing .env.vault decryption keys... done

dotenv://:[email protected]/vault/.env.vault?environment=ci

Set deployment

With the decryption key safely in your possession, it is time for you to insert it as a secret within Supabase.

You can do this with a simple CLI action, where you set DOTENV_KEY as the key first, add an equals sign and follow with the decryption key you obtained earlier as the value. There are no empty spaces in between.

CLI

supabase secrets set DOTENV_KEY=dotenv://:key_828fe6f34bf[email protected]/vault/.env.vault?environment=production

Once you’ve set your decryption key as a Supabase secret you can start interacting with it.

To do that, however, you will need to add the appropriate references for the Supabase client within your index.js file.

Node.js

// index.js
const { createClient } = require('@supabase/supabase-js')

const supabaseUrl = process.env.URL
const supabaseKey = process.env.KEY
const supabase = createClient(supabaseUrl, supabaseKey)
console.log(supabase); // display Supabase instance information to debug

Commit and push

That’s it!

Commit those changes safely to code and start interacting with Supabase.

When the build runs, it will recognize the DOTENV_KEY, decrypt the .env.vault file, and load the production environment variables to ENV.

If a DOTENV_KEY is not set when developing on local machine, for example, it will fall back to standard Dotenv functionality.

You’ll know things worked correctly when you see the Supabase instance information displayed in your CLI logs.