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Deploy a Nuxt.js App to Vercel

Deploy a Nuxt.js app with an encrypted .env.vault file to Vercel.

Find a complete code example on GitHub for this guide.

Initial setup

Create a Nuxt.js application.

npx nuxi@latest init

This will create a handful of files.

ls -1
README.md
app.vue
nuxt.config.ts
package.json
public/
server/
tsconfig.json

Edit app.vue to include HELLO.

app.vue

<script setup lang="ts">
  const config = useRuntimeConfig()
</script>

<template>
  Hello {{config.public.HELLO}}.
</template>

Edit nuxt.config.ts to include runtimeConfig environment variables.

nuxt.config.ts

// https://nuxt.com/docs/api/configuration/nuxt-config
export default defineNuxtConfig({
  runtimeConfig: {
    public: {
      HELLO: process.env.HELLO
    }
  },
  devtools: { enabled: true }
})

Commit that to code and deploy to Vercel.

npx vercel@latest deploy --prod
yourapp.vercel.app

Once deployed, your app will say 'Hello .' as it doesn't have a way to access the environment variable yet. Let's do that next.

Install dotenv

Install dotenv.

npm install dotenv --save # Requires dotenv >= 16.1.0

Create a .env file in the root of your project.

.env

# .env
HELLO="World"

As early as possible in nuxt.config.ts require and load dotenv.

nuxt.config.ts

// https://nuxt.com/docs/api/configuration/nuxt-config
require('dotenv').config()

export default defineNuxtConfig({
  runtimeConfig: {
    public: {
      HELLO: process.env.HELLO
    }
  },
  devtools: { enabled: true }
})

Try running it locally.

npm run dev
# Visit http://localhost:3000

It will say 'Hello World'.

Great! process.env now has the keys and values you defined in your .env file.

That covers local simulation of production. Let's solve for the real production environment next.

Build .env.vault

Push your latest .env file changes and edit your production secrets. Learn more about syncing

npx dotenv-vault@latest push
npx dotenv-vault@latest open production

Use the UI to configure those secrets per environment.

www.dotenv.org

Then build your encrypted .env.vault file.

npx dotenv-vault@latest build

Its contents should look something like this.

.env.vault

#/-------------------.env.vault---------------------/
#/         cloud-agnostic vaulting standard         /
#/   [how it works](https://dotenv.org/env-vault)   /
#/--------------------------------------------------/

# development
DOTENV_VAULT_DEVELOPMENT="/HqNgQWsf6Oh6XB9pI/CGkdgCe6d4/vWZHgP50RRoDTzkzPQk/xOaQs="
DOTENV_VAULT_DEVELOPMENT_VERSION=2

# production
DOTENV_VAULT_PRODUCTION="x26PuIKQ/xZ5eKrYomKngM+dO/9v1vxhwslE/zjHdg3l+H6q6PheB5GVDVIbZg=="
DOTENV_VAULT_PRODUCTION_VERSION=2

Set DOTENV_KEY

Fetch your production DOTENV_KEY.

npx dotenv-vault@latest keys production
# outputs: dotenv://:[email protected]/vault/.env.vault?environment=production

Set DOTENV_KEY on Vercel using the CLI.

npx vercel@latest env add DOTENV_KEY

? What’s the value of DOTENV_KEY? dotenv://:[email protected]/vault/.env.vault?environment=production
✅  Added Environment Variable DOTENV_KEY to Project nodejs-vercel [94ms]

Or use Vercel's UI.

vercel.com

Deploy

You'll have to delete your .env file now to make use of the .env.vault file with Vercel and Nuxt. Otherwise, Nuxt prioritizes the .env file over everything.

rm .env

Commit those changes safely to code and redeploy to Vercel.

npx vercel@latest deploy --prod

That's it! On deploy, your .env.vault file will be decrypted and its production secrets injected as environment variables – just in time.

yourapp.vercel.app

You succesfully used the new .env.vault standard to encrypt and deploy your secrets. This is much safer than scattering your secrets across multiple third-party platforms and tools. Whenever you need to add or change a secret, just rebuild your .env.vault file and redeploy.