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Environment Variables

Environment variables are key-value pairs that are useful for storing values you wouldn't want to put in code or in a table, such as an API key. You can store environment variables in Convex through the dashboard, and you can access them in functions using process.env.

Storing environment variables​

Under Deployment Settings in the Dashboard, you can see a list of environment variables in your deployment. Environment Variables Table

You can add up to 10 environment variables. Environment variable names cannot be more than 40 characters long, and they must start with a letter and only contain letters numbers, and underscores. Environment variable values cannot be larger than 8KB.

You can modify environment variables using the "Edit" button:

Edit Environment Variable

Accessing environment variables​

You can access environment variables in Convex functions using process.env.KEY. You can only access environment variables that are stored in your deployment (see instructions above). An environment variable can be a string or undefined in Typescript. Here is an example of accessing an environment variable with the key GIPHY_KEY:

function giphyUrl(query) {
  return (
    "https://api.giphy.com/v1/gifs/translate?api_key=" +
    process.env.GIPHY_KEY +
    "&s=" +
    encodeURIComponent(query)
  );
}

Using environment variables in dev and prod deployments​

Since environment variables are stored per-deployment, you can use different values for the same key in dev and prod deployments. This can be useful for when you have different external accounts you'd like to use depending on the environment. For example, you might have a dev and prod SendGrid account for sending emails, and your function expects an environment variable called SENDGRID_API_KEY that should work in both environments. If you expect an environment variable to be present in a function, you will have to add it to all deployments that function is deployed to. In this example, you would add an environment variable with the name SENDGRID_API_KEY to your dev and prod deployments, with a different value for dev than for prod.

System environment variables​

The following environment variables are always available in Convex functions:

  • CONVEX_CLOUD_URL - Your deployment URL (eg. https://dusty-nightingale-847.convex.cloud) for use with Convex clients.
  • CONVEX_SITE_URL - Your deployment site URL (eg. https://dusty-nightingale-847.convex.site) for use with HTTP Endpoints