environment_variables.md

Environment Variables

In this part we will start to investigate how we move dynamic configuration parameters out of the code and into environment variables.

Steps:

• Configure the environment variables for the application
  !!Notice the whitespace in front of the second line? This prevents the command from entering shell command history

  export NODE_ENV=production
   export CLIENT_SECRET='the client secret from the AD app object'
  export CLIENT_ID='the client id from the AD app object'
  export TENANT_ID='the tenant id'
  export PORT=3000
  export REDIRECT_URI=$(aa-get-redirect-uri.sh)

• The aa-get-redirect-uri.sh scripts helps to extract and generate a redirect uri for your workspace
  Examine the script at ../src/aa-get-redirect-uri.sh (It's automatically added to the path)

• You can extract the value from the CLIENT_SECRET from the environment using the following command

  echo $CLIENT_SECRET 

• (If you have create a new code space since you configured the Entra ID Application Object for the client app, you may need to update the app registration with the proper redirect uri.)

--Now You--

• In the terminal window you have active from preparing the environment
  • Configure the environment variables for your app

--Discuss security issues and good practices--

• A good practice is to move config into files, potentially .env files
  • The .env files should be stored outside the code repository
  • The .env files should be included in .gitignore
• Establish good overview over which config that needs to be treated as secrets and which does not
• NB! There are many secrets stored in a Codespace. Be vigilant of what code that you are downloading and executing