env-differ 0.1.0

CLI tool to compare two .env files and report differences

env-differ

A CLI tool that compares two .env files and reports differences — missing keys, extra keys, and changed values.
Values are never printed; only key names are shown.

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Installation

pip install env-differ

Or install from source for development:

git clone https://github.com/your-org/env-differ.git
cd env-differ
pip install -e ".[dev]"

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Usage

env-differ <file_a> <file_b>

file_a is the reference file (e.g. .env.example).
file_b is the file being checked (e.g. .env).

Basic comparison

env-differ .env.example .env

Output example:

Missing keys (in .env.example but not in .env):
  - DATABASE_URL
  - SECRET_KEY

Extra keys (in .env but not in .env.example):
  + DEBUG_VERBOSE

Changed values (key exists in both files but values differ):
  ~ APP_ENV [CHANGED]

No differences

All good! No differences found.

--strict (CI mode)

Exit with code 1 if any missing keys are found. Useful in CI pipelines to ensure a .env file has all required keys from the example.

env-differ --strict .env.example .env
echo $?   # 1 if missing keys, 0 otherwise

GitHub Actions example:

- name: Check .env completeness
  run: env-differ --strict .env.example .env

--json (machine-readable output)

env-differ --json .env.example .env

Output:

{
  "missing": ["DATABASE_URL", "SECRET_KEY"],
  "extra": ["DEBUG_VERBOSE"],
  "changed": ["APP_ENV"],
  "has_differences": true
}

--version

env-differ --version

Help

env-differ --help
env-differ -h

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Behaviour notes

• Lines starting with # and blank lines are ignored.
• export KEY=VALUE syntax is supported.
• Surrounding single or double quotes are stripped from values.
• Actual values are never shown in output (privacy-safe).

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Running tests

pytest

With coverage:

pytest --cov=env_differ --cov-report=term-missing

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License

MIT