Multiline strings in .env files

I love using .env files to configure my applications. They're a great way to keep configuration in one place and to keep it out of the codebase. They're also a great way to keep secrets out of the codebase.

But what if you need to use a multiline string in a .env file? How do you do that? You just do it:

SINGLE_LINE="you know what..."
MULTI_LINE="you know what you did
LAST SUMMER"

That's right, you just use a newline character. It's that simple. Oddly, searching for that on the internet didn't yield the answer I was looking for. So I'm writing it down here for posterity.

With your .env file in place, you can then consume it in your application using a package like dotenv. Or if you'd like to use a bash script to consume the .env file, you can do it like this:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -a
source test.env
set +a

npm run start # or whatever you need to do