Feature request: ability to customize path to .env

[tomdavies]

Being able to customize the path to .env would allow for more flexible project structures, for example when Craft is being used along side other services and it is convenient to share envvars in development via a shared .env file.

Example

This is the (simplified) directory structure that I have for our GH repo template:

.
├── .env
├── composer.json
├── composer.lock
├── src
│   ├── assets
│   ├── bootstrap.php
│   ├── config
│   ├── craft
│   ├── modules
│   ├── plugins
│   ├── storage
│   ├── templates
│   └── web
└── vendor/

Moving .env works completely fine by just editing bootstrap.php a little bit:

<?php
/**
 * Shared bootstrap file
 */

// Define path constants
define('CRAFT_BASE_PATH', __DIR__);
define('DOTENV_PATH', dirname(CRAFT_BASE_PATH, 1));
define('CRAFT_COMPOSER_PATH', dirname(CRAFT_BASE_PATH, 1) . '/composer.json');
define('CRAFT_VENDOR_PATH', dirname(CRAFT_BASE_PATH, 1) . '/vendor');

// Load Composer's autoloader
require_once CRAFT_VENDOR_PATH . '/autoload.php';

if (class_exists(Dotenv\Dotenv::class) && file_exists(DOTENV_PATH . '/.env')) {
    // By default, this will allow .env file values to override environment variables
    // with matching names. Use `createUnsafeImmutable` to disable this.
    Dotenv\Dotenv::createUnsafeMutable(DOTENV_PATH)->safeLoad();
}

However craft\services\Config.php::getDotEnvPath() forces the path to .env to Craft::getAlias('@root/.env'), and hence the craft setup / craft install commands won't work as expected (existing values will get read from the root .env file, but written to a new one at src/.env).

Please, pretty please could we have a CRAFT_DOTENV_PATH constant that just defaults to current value?

[brandonkelly]

Just added support for a CRAFT_DOTENV_PATH constant, for Craft 4.3. (e28fc5d)

Alternatively, you can point CRAFT_BASE_PATH to the top level directory, and override the config/, storage and templates/ directory path constants (rather than CRAFT_COMPOSER_PATH and CRAFT_VENDOR_PATH):

$basePath = __DIR__;

// Define path constants
define('CRAFT_BASE_PATH', dirname($basePath));
define('CRAFT_CONFIG_PATH', "$basePath/config");
define('CRAFT_STORAGE_PATH', "$basePath/storage");
define('CRAFT_TEMPLATES_PATH', "$basePath/templates");

[tomdavies]

🙏 thanks @brandonkelly, good tip re CRAFT_BASE_PATH too

[brandonkelly]

Craft 4.3 was released earlier this week with this change!