Environment variables in a multi environment setup

[uxxman]

Currently when using set env_vars, it completely overrides the value of env_vars variable which is not ideal in a multi environment setup where we share most of the environment variables and only a few differs. Shouldn't we use hash merge here by default or add a new command for appending new values or updating existing ones, this way we can have,

set env_vars: {
  RAILS_LOG_TO_STDOUT: '1',
  RAILS_MASTER_KEY: :prompt,
  # ... other common environment variables
}

environment :production do
  set env_vars: { RACK_ENV: 'production', RAILS_ENV: 'production' }

  # OR
  # append :env_vars, RACK_ENV: 'production'
  # append :env_vars, RAILS_ENV: 'production'

  host 'user@production_ip'
end

environment :staging do
  set env_vars: { RACK_ENV: 'staging', RAILS_ENV: 'staging' }

  host 'user@staging_ip'
end

[mattbrictson]

Since config.rb is a ruby file, you can also declare a variable like this:

common_env_vars = {
  RAILS_LOG_TO_STDOUT: '1',
  RAILS_MASTER_KEY: :prompt,
  # ... other common environment variables
}

environment :production do
  set env_vars: common_env_vars.merge(RACK_ENV: 'production', RAILS_ENV: 'production' )
end

environment :staging do
  set env_vars: common_env_vars.merge(RACK_ENV: 'staging', RAILS_ENV: 'staging')
end

Do you think it is worth introducing a new DSL method for this? I am not sure I want to add to the DSL for something that can be accomplished with plain Ruby that people already know. Thoughts?

[uxxman]

This is exactly how I am doing it currently to make this work set env_vars: ENV_VARS.merge(RACK_ENV: 'staging', RAILS_ENV: 'staging') 😄

About the new DSL. The question is how do developers who are writing a custom tomo plugin, add new environment variables or linked_dirs? cause currently I was thinking of grouping together related stuff and put it into a separate plugin instead of having a giant ./tomo/config.rb but couldn't try it since set env_vars overrides the hash completely.