Configure Environment Files

Overview

CLI Python scripts for configuring environment files for a various software and web applications available on the PyPi repository.

configure-env reads a project's .env.example template and walks you through an interactive wizard to create or update the matching .env file:

• Shows each field's description and section headers, taken straight from the template's own comments.
• Prefills from an existing .env, if one is already there — press Enter to keep a value, or type a new one.
• Offers to auto-generate a value for any field whose comment documents a generation command (e.g. secrets.token_hex(32)), instead of making you copy-paste a separate command.
• Masks input for fields that look like secrets (name contains KEY, SECRET, TOKEN, or PASSWORD).
• Backs up an existing .env to .env.bak before overwriting it, and preserves any keys already in .env that aren't in .env.example instead of silently dropping them.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Python 3.10+

Installation

From PyPI (once published):

pip install configure-env

From GitHub, before the first PyPI release:

pip install git+https://github.com/RichardMcQuiston01/configure-env-py.git

Usage

configure-env [directory]

directory defaults to the current directory. configure-env looks for <directory>/.env.example there and writes/updates <directory>/.env.

Examples

Run from a project root that already contains .env.example:

$ configure-env
Application
-----------
APP_ENV [development]:
...
Security
--------
  Generate a strong key:  python -c "import secrets; print(secrets.token_hex(32))"
API_KEY - generate a secure random value automatically? [Y/n]:
  generated API_KEY (shown once, also saved to .env): 3f1c9c...
...
wrote .env

Target a different directory:

configure-env ../some-other-project

Development

python -m venv .venv
.venv\Scripts\activate          # macOS/Linux: source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"

pytest
ruff check .
mypy src

License

Apache 2.0 — see LICENSE.

Support

If this library saved you some reverse-engineering, consider buying me a coffee. ☕

Donate via Stripe, or scan:

Copyright

(c) 2026 Richard McQuiston. Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 — see COPYRIGHT.