Env Selector

Manage .env environment variants and Git branches from a modern sidebar interface — built for single projects and monorepos.

Features

• Automatic project detection — finds every folder in the workspace that contains a .env file
• Environment variants — create, edit, and switch between named environments (e.g. development, staging, production)
• One-click switching — selecting an environment writes its contents to the active .env file
• Git branch control — view the current branch and check out another branch per project
• Monorepo presets — save and apply a joint profile that sets environment (and optionally branch) across all projects at once
• Theme-aware UI — follows your VS Code theme (light, dark, high contrast)

Requirements

• Visual Studio Code 1.85.0 or newer
• The built-in Git extension (vscode.git) for branch management

Installation

From the Marketplace

Search for Env Selector in the VS Code Extensions view and click Install.

From a VSIX (manual)

npm install -g @vscode/vsce
npm run build
vsce package
code --install-extension env-selector-0.1.0.vsix

Getting started

1. Open a workspace that contains at least one .env file.
2. Click the Env Selector icon in the Activity Bar (left sidebar).
3. The extension scans the workspace and lists one card per detected project.

On first run, if a project already has a .env file but no variants yet, the extension imports it as a default variant inside .envs/default.env.

How environment storage works

Each project with a .env file gets a dedicated variants folder:

my-project/
  .env                 ← active environment (written when you switch)
  .envs/
    default.env        ← variant files
    staging.env
    production.env

The active environment name per project is stored in VS Code workspace state (not in your repo).

When switching environments, the extension backs up the current .env content inside .envs/ before overwriting.

Version control tips

• Add .env to .gitignore if it contains secrets.
• Commit .envs/*.env if your team shares environment templates (without secrets), or keep variants local.
• Commit .envs/presets.json to share monorepo presets with your team.

Per-project controls

Each project card provides:

Active environment

• Dropdown — select a variant; the extension applies it immediately to .env.
• Edit — open a key-value editor (or raw mode) for the selected variant.
• + New — create a new named variant.
• Delete — remove the selected variant (at least one variant must remain).

Git branch

• Dropdown — lists local branches and checks out the selected branch.
• If Git is unavailable or the folder is not inside a repository, a message is shown instead.

Use the Refresh button (↻) in the header to rescan projects after adding or removing .env files.

Presets (monorepo)

When multiple projects are detected, a Presets section appears at the top of the sidebar.

Presets let you switch every project to a known configuration with one click — useful for moving between development, staging, and production setups across a monorepo.

Preset file location

workspace-root/
  .envs/
    presets.json

Example:

{
  "version": 1,
  "presets": [
    {
      "id": "preset-1234567890-abc123",
      "name": "staging",
      "entries": [
        { "projectId": "api", "envName": "staging", "branch": "develop" },
        { "projectId": "web", "envName": "staging" }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Each entry maps a project ID (relative workspace path) to:

• envName (required) — variant to apply
• branch (optional) — branch to check out; omitted entries skip branch changes

Preset actions

Partial failures

When applying a preset:

• Projects with missing environments or unknown project IDs are skipped with a warning.
• If one project fails (e.g. dirty Git working tree), other projects still apply.
• A summary toast reports successes, failures, and skipped entries.

Commands