What is viewing environment variables in Node.js

Viewing environment variables on your server helps you confirm configuration values.

This can be useful when you need to check API URLs or database credentials during runtime.

For example, you might want to log the value of DB_HOST to ensure your service connects to the right database.

Using Operational for environment variable monitoring

Operational is an open-source event tracking tool for any tech product.

You can use it to log when your application reads or changes environment variables.

This helps you audit configuration access and catch unexpected values.

Setting Up Operational

1. Go to https://app.operational.co and create an account.
2. Generate a new API key from the dashboard.
3. Install the SDK in your Node.js project.
4. Keep your API key safe and do not expose it publicly.

Code Example

import Operational from "@operational.co/sdk"
const ops = new Operational("YOUR_API_KEY")

function logEnvVar(name) {
  const value = process.env[name]
  ops.events.ingest({
    name: "Environment Variable Read",
    avatar: "🔑",
    content: `${name} = ${value}`
  })
}

logEnvVar("DB_HOST")

This example reads the DB_HOST environment variable and sends an event to Operational.

Conclusion

Tracking environment variable access can help you debug configuration issues.

Operational provides an easy way to capture these events and review them in real time.

Learn more at https://operational.co and try the playground for quick experiments: https://operational.co/playground