DotEnv Lens

See what is wrong with your .env file in one click. DotEnv Lens compares it with your template and shows missing, extra, and empty keys.

What it reports

• Missing: in the template, not in your .env
• Extra: in your .env, not in the template
• Empty: in your .env, but with no value
• Duplicates: defined more than once (the last one wins)

Only key names are shown. Values are never printed.

How to use

Open a folder that has a .env file and a template, then do one of these:

• Press Ctrl+Shift+P (Cmd+Shift+P on macOS) and run DotEnv Lens: Compare .env with template.
• Right-click an env or template file and choose DotEnv Lens: Compare .env with template.

The report opens in the DotEnv Lens output panel.

DotEnv Lens: .env vs .env.example

Missing from .env, present in .env.example (2)
  REDIS_URL
  SECRET_TOKEN

Extra in .env, not in .env.example (1)
  OLD_FLAG

Empty in .env (1)
  API_KEY

Files it finds

If there is more than one match, you pick from a list.

Limits

Multi-line quoted values and ${VAR} expansion are not supported. In a multi-root workspace, only the first folder is used.

Design decisions

• The parser and comparison are plain TypeScript with no VS Code dependency, so they are unit tested on their own.
• Keys are case sensitive, like env variables on Linux and macOS.
• Empty is reported only for keys that also exist in the template.
• The extension reads two local files and makes no network calls.

Development

npm install
npm test
npm run build

Press F5 in VS Code to run the extension in a test window.

License

MIT