DigitalOcean

Find code examples for this guide on GitHub.

DigitalOcean has multiple deploy paths—droplets, Kubernetes, and App Platform. This guide assumes Docker (the most common path).

Dockerfile

# .dockerignore
.env.keys

# Dockerfile
FROM node:20
WORKDIR /app

RUN curl -sfS https://dotenvx.sh/install.sh | sh

COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm install
COPY . .
EXPOSE 3000

CMD ["dotenvx", "run", "--", "node", "index.js"]

Encrypt production

# .env.production
HELLO="production"

$ dotenvx encrypt -f .env.production

Commit .env.production. Do not commit .env.keys.

Set decryption key

Set DOTENV_PRIVATE_KEY to your production private key and DOTENV_FILE to .env.production in DigitalOcean's environment variable manager (or pass it into docker run -e), then redeploy. Your app injects env from the encrypted .env.production file.