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Deployment
Environment Variables

Environment Variables

Complete reference for all environment variables used by ReliaPulse.

Required Variables

These variables must be set for the application to function.

Database

# PostgreSQL connection string
DATABASE_URL="postgresql://user:password@host:5432/database"

Authentication

# NextAuth.js secret (minimum 32 characters)
# Generate: openssl rand -base64 32
NEXTAUTH_SECRET="your-super-secret-key-at-least-32-chars"
 
# Base URL of your application
NEXTAUTH_URL="https://status.example.com"

Redis

# Redis connection for queues and caching
REDIS_URL="redis://localhost:6379"

Optional Variables

Email (Resend)

# Resend API key for email notifications
RESEND_API_KEY="re_xxx"
 
# Default from email address
EMAIL_FROM="noreply@status.example.com"

SMS (Twilio)

# Twilio credentials for SMS notifications
TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID="ACxxx"
TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN="xxx"
TWILIO_PHONE_NUMBER="+1234567890"

Web Push

# VAPID keys for browser push notifications
# Generate: npx web-push generate-vapid-keys
NEXT_PUBLIC_VAPID_PUBLIC_KEY="BPxxx"
VAPID_PRIVATE_KEY="xxx"

OAuth Providers

# GitHub OAuth
GITHUB_CLIENT_ID="xxx"
GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET="xxx"
 
# Google OAuth
GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID="xxx"
GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET="xxx"
 
# Microsoft/Azure AD OAuth
AZURE_AD_CLIENT_ID="xxx"
AZURE_AD_CLIENT_SECRET="xxx"
AZURE_AD_TENANT_ID="xxx"

Encryption

# Key for encrypting sensitive data (2FA secrets, API tokens)
# Generate: openssl rand -base64 32
ENCRYPTION_KEY="your-32-char-encryption-key"

Application

# Node environment
NODE_ENV="production"
 
# Log level (fatal, error, warn, info, debug, trace)
LOG_LEVEL="info"
 
# Service name for logging
SERVICE_NAME="status-page"
 
# Worker concurrency
WORKER_CONCURRENCY="10"

Feature Flags

# Enable/disable Socket.IO real-time updates
ENABLE_SOCKET_IO="true"
 
# Enable/disable rate limiting
ENABLE_RATE_LIMITING="true"

Environment by Deployment Type

Development

# .env.local
DATABASE_URL="postgresql://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/statuspage"
REDIS_URL="redis://localhost:6379"
NEXTAUTH_SECRET="development-secret-key-at-least-32-chars"
NEXTAUTH_URL="http://localhost:3000"
NODE_ENV="development"
LOG_LEVEL="debug"

Docker Compose

# docker/.env
DATABASE_URL="postgresql://postgres:postgres@db:5432/statuspage"
REDIS_URL="redis://redis:6379"
NEXTAUTH_SECRET="your-production-secret-key"
NEXTAUTH_URL="http://localhost:3000"
POSTGRES_PASSWORD="postgres"

Kubernetes

Environment variables should be stored in Kubernetes Secrets:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: statuspage-secrets
type: Opaque
stringData:
  DATABASE_URL: "postgresql://user:pass@postgres:5432/statuspage"
  REDIS_URL: "redis://redis:6379"
  NEXTAUTH_SECRET: "your-secret"
  NEXTAUTH_URL: "https://status.example.com"

Vercel

Set variables in the Vercel dashboard under Project Settings → Environment Variables.

Required for Vercel:

  • DATABASE_URL - Use a hosted PostgreSQL (Neon, Supabase, etc.)
  • NEXTAUTH_SECRET
  • NEXTAUTH_URL

Note: Redis is required for workers. Use Upstash Redis for serverless compatibility.

Security Best Practices

Secret Generation

# Generate secure secrets
openssl rand -base64 32
 
# Using Node.js
node -e "console.log(require('crypto').randomBytes(32).toString('base64'))"

Secret Management

  1. Never commit secrets to git

    • Use .env.local (gitignored)
    • Use secret managers (Vault, AWS Secrets Manager)

  2. Rotate secrets regularly

    • NEXTAUTH_SECRET
    • API keys
    • Database passwords

  3. Use different secrets per environment

    • Development
    • Staging
    • Production

Minimum Required for Production

DATABASE_URL       # Must use SSL in production
NEXTAUTH_SECRET    # Must be unique and secure
NEXTAUTH_URL       # Must match your domain
REDIS_URL          # Required for background jobs
ENCRYPTION_KEY     # Required for 2FA and sensitive data

Validation

The application validates required environment variables at startup. Missing variables will cause the application to fail with a clear error message.

// Environment validation (src/lib/env.ts)
import { z } from "zod";
 
const envSchema = z.object({
  DATABASE_URL: z.string().url(),
  NEXTAUTH_SECRET: z.string().min(32),
  NEXTAUTH_URL: z.string().url(),
  REDIS_URL: z.string().optional(),
});
 
export const env = envSchema.parse(process.env);

Troubleshooting

Variable Not Found

# Check if variable is set
echo $DATABASE_URL
 
# Check in Docker
docker compose exec app printenv | grep DATABASE_URL

Connection String Issues

# PostgreSQL URL format
postgresql://username:password@host:port/database?sslmode=require
 
# Redis URL format
redis://[[username]:[password]]@host:port[/database]
redis://:password@host:port  # Password only
rediss://host:port           # With TLS

SSL/TLS Connections

For production databases:

# PostgreSQL with SSL
DATABASE_URL="postgresql://user:pass@host:5432/db?sslmode=require"
 
# Redis with TLS
REDIS_URL="rediss://user:pass@host:6379"

Related

Kubernetes