Does accessing NODE_ENV make sense in front end code?

Question

I have a react/node app that I\'m deploying. One of the components attempts to access NODE_ENV in order to determine which host URL to use (localhost or heroku).

I now r

Answer 1

It's a good practice to use NODE_ENV variables for things like API URL.

If you used create-react-app, all environment variables starting with REACT_APP_ should already be accessible with process.env.REACT_APP_VARIABLE_NAME.
You can try REACT_APP_TEST=5 npm start then console.log(process.env.REACT_APP_TEST).

If you are not using create-react-app, you have to import them in your webpack config.

You can also choose to define the process.env variables for the app through a .env file using dotenv.