Consolidate environment variables to a single, exhaustive list (and keep in parity with CLI)

[jsejcksn]

Currently, there are environment variables spread out across the web documentation — with differing collections of variables listed or duplicated on different pages, for example:

runtime > manual > basics > env_variables.md

runtime/manual/basics/env_variables.md

name	description
DENO_AUTH_TOKENS	A semi-colon separated list of bearer tokens and hostnames to use when fetching remote modules from private repositories (e.g. abcde12345@deno.land;54321edcba@github.com)
DENO_CERT	Load certificate authority from PEM encoded file
DENO_DIR	Set the cache directory
DENO_INSTALL_ROOT	Set deno install's output directory (defaults to $HOME/.deno/bin)
DENO_JOBS	Number of parallel workers used for the --parallel flag with the test subcommand. Defaults to number of available CPUs.
DENO_NO_PACKAGE_JSON	Disables auto-resolution of package.json
DENO_NO_PROMPT	Set to disable permission prompts on access (alternative to passing --no-prompt on invocation)
DENO_NO_UPDATE_CHECK	Set to disable checking if a newer Deno version is available
DENO_REPL_HISTORY	Set REPL history file path History file is disabled when the value is empty (defaults to $DENO_DIR/deno_history.txt)
DENO_TLS_CA_STORE	Comma-separated list of order dependent certificate stores. Possible values: system, mozilla. Defaults to mozilla.
DENO_V8_FLAGS	Set V8 command line options
HTTP_PROXY	Proxy address for HTTP requests (module downloads, fetch)
HTTPS_PROXY	Proxy address for HTTPS requests (module downloads, fetch)
NO_COLOR	Set to disable color
NO_PROXY	Comma-separated list of hosts which do not use a proxy (module downloads, fetch)
NPM_CONFIG_REGISTRY	URL to use for the npm registry.

runtime > manual > getting_started > setup_your_environment.md

runtime/manual/getting_started/setup_your_environment.md

name	description
DENO_AUTH_TOKENS	a list of authorization tokens which can be used to allow Deno to access remote private code. See the Private modules and repositories section for more details.
DENO_CERT	load a certificate authority from a PEM encoded file. This "overrides" the --cert option. See the Proxies section for more information.
DENO_DIR	this will set the directory where cached information from the CLI is stored. This includes items like cached remote modules, cached transpiled modules, language server cache information and persisted data from local storage. This defaults to the operating system's default cache location and then under the deno path.
DENO_INSTALL_ROOT	When using deno install where the installed scripts are stored. This defaults to $HOME/.deno/bin.
DENO_NO_PACKAGE_JSON	Set to disable auto-resolution of package.json files.
DENO_NO_PROMPT	Set to disable permission prompts on access (alternative to passing --no-prompt on invocation).
DENO_NO_UPDATE_CHECK	Set to disable checking if a newer Deno version is available.
DENO_TLS_CA_STORE	a list of certificate stores which will be used when establishing TLS connections. The available stores are mozilla and system. You can specify one, both or none. Certificate chains attempt to resolve in the same order in which you specify them. The default value is mozilla. The mozilla store will use the bundled Mozilla certs provided by webpki-roots. The system store will use your platform's native certificate store. The exact set of Mozilla certs will depend on the version of Deno you are using. If you specify no certificate stores, then no trust will be given to any TLS connection without also specifying DENO_CERT or --cert or specifying a specific certificate per TLS connection.
DENO_WEBGPU_TRACE	The directory to use for WebGPU traces.
HTTP_PROXY	The proxy address to use for HTTP requests. See the Proxies section for more information.
HTTPS_PROXY	The proxy address to use for HTTPS requests. See the Proxies section for more information.
NO_COLOR	If set, this will prevent the Deno CLI from sending ANSI color codes when writing to stdout and stderr. See the website https://no-color.org for more information on this de facto standard. The value of this flag can be accessed at runtime without permission to read the environment variables by checking the value of Deno.noColor.
NO_PROXY	Indicates hosts which should bypass the proxy set in the other environment variables. See the Proxies section for more information.
NPM_CONFIG_REGISTRY	The npm registry to use when loading modules via npm specifiers

runtime > reference > cli > env_variables.md

runtime/reference/cli/env_variables.md

name	description
DENO_AUTH_TOKENS	A list of authorization tokens which can be used to allow Deno to access remote private code. See the Private modules and repositories section for more details.
DENO_CERT	Load a certificate authority from a PEM encoded file. This "overrides" the --cert option. See the Proxies section for more information.
DENO_DIR	this will set the directory where cached information from the CLI is stored. This includes items like cached remote modules, cached transpiled modules, language server cache information and persisted data from local storage. This defaults to the operating system's default cache location and then under the deno path.
DENO_INSTALL_ROOT	When using deno install where the installed scripts are stored. This defaults to $HOME/.deno/bin.
DENO_NO_PACKAGE_JSON	Set to disable auto-resolution of package.json files.
DENO_NO_PROMPT	Set to disable permission prompts on access (alternative to passing --no-prompt on invocation).
DENO_NO_UPDATE_CHECK	Set to disable checking if a newer Deno version is available.
DENO_TLS_CA_STORE	A list of certificate stores which will be used when establishing TLS connections. The available stores are mozilla and system. You can specify one, both or none. Certificate chains attempt to resolve in the same order in which you specify them. The default value is mozilla. The mozilla store will use the bundled Mozilla certs provided by webpki-roots. The system store will use your platform's native certificate store. The exact set of Mozilla certs will depend on the version of Deno you are using. If you specify no certificate stores, then no trust will be given to any TLS connection without also specifying DENO_CERT or --cert or specifying a specific certificate per TLS connection.
DENO_WEBGPU_TRACE	The directory to use for WebGPU traces.
HTTP_PROXY	The proxy address to use for HTTP requests. See the Proxies section for more information.
HTTPS_PROXY	The proxy address to use for HTTPS requests. See the Proxies section for more information.
NO_COLOR	If set, this will prevent the Deno CLI from sending ANSI color codes when writing to stdout and stderr. See the website https://no-color.org for more information on this de facto standard. The value of this flag can be accessed at runtime without permission to read the environment variables by checking the value of Deno.noColor.
NO_PROXY	Indicates hosts which should bypass the proxy set in the other environment variables. See the Proxies section for more information.
NPM_CONFIG_REGISTRY	The npm registry to use when loading modules via npm specifiers

---

Additionally, the Deno CLI help command lists the following environment variables:

CLI list from the help command:

name	description
DENO_AUTH_TOKENS	A semi-colon separated list of bearer tokens and hostnames to use when fetching remote modules from private repositories (e.g. "abcde12345@deno.land;54321edcba@github.com")
DENO_CERT	Load certificate authorities from PEM encoded file
DENO_DIR	Set the cache directory
DENO_FUTURE	Set to "1" to enable APIs that will take effect in Deno 2
DENO_INSTALL_ROOT	Set deno install's output directory (defaults to $HOME/.deno/bin)
DENO_NO_PACKAGE_JSON	Disables auto-resolution of package.json
DENO_NO_UPDATE_CHECK	Set to disable checking if a newer Deno version is available
DENO_TLS_CA_STORE	Comma-separated list of order dependent certificate stores. Possible values: "system", "mozilla". (defaults to "mozilla")
HTTP_PROXY	Proxy address for HTTP requests (module downloads, fetch)
HTTPS_PROXY	Proxy address for HTTPS requests (module downloads, fetch)
NO_COLOR	Set to disable color
NO_PROXY	Comma-separated list of hosts which do not use a proxy (module downloads, fetch)
NPM_CONFIG_REGISTRY	URL to use for the npm registry.

Raw CLI stdout:

% deno help
--- snip ---
Environment variables:
  DENO_AUTH_TOKENS      A semi-colon separated list of bearer tokens and hostnames
                        to use when fetching remote modules from private repositories
                         (e.g. "abcde12345@deno.land;54321edcba@github.com")
  DENO_FUTURE           Set to "1" to enable APIs that will take effect in Deno 2
  DENO_CERT             Load certificate authorities from PEM encoded file
  DENO_DIR              Set the cache directory
  DENO_INSTALL_ROOT     Set deno install's output directory
                         (defaults to $HOME/.deno/bin)
  DENO_NO_PACKAGE_JSON  Disables auto-resolution of package.json
  DENO_NO_UPDATE_CHECK  Set to disable checking if a newer Deno version is available
  DENO_TLS_CA_STORE     Comma-separated list of order dependent certificate stores.
                        Possible values: "system", "mozilla".
                         (defaults to "mozilla")
  HTTP_PROXY            Proxy address for HTTP requests
                         (module downloads, fetch)
  HTTPS_PROXY           Proxy address for HTTPS requests
                         (module downloads, fetch)
  NO_COLOR              Set to disable color
  NO_PROXY              Comma-separated list of hosts which do not use a proxy
                         (module downloads, fetch)
  NPM_CONFIG_REGISTRY   URL to use for the npm registry.
--- snip ---

% deno --version
deno 1.46.2 (stable, release, aarch64-apple-darwin)
v8 12.9.202.5-rusty
typescript 5.5.2

---

Here's a juxtaposition of the variables from all of the lists above:

{
  "common": [
    "DENO_AUTH_TOKENS",
    "DENO_CERT",
    "DENO_DIR",
    "DENO_INSTALL_ROOT",
    "DENO_NO_PACKAGE_JSON",
    "DENO_NO_UPDATE_CHECK",
    "DENO_TLS_CA_STORE",
    "HTTP_PROXY",
    "HTTPS_PROXY",
    "NO_COLOR",
    "NO_PROXY",
    "NPM_CONFIG_REGISTRY"
  ],
  "differences": {
    "cli help command": [
      "DENO_FUTURE"
    ],
    "runtime/manual/basics/env_variables.md": [
      "DENO_JOBS",
      "DENO_NO_PROMPT",
      "DENO_REPL_HISTORY",
      "DENO_V8_FLAGS"
    ],
    "runtime/manual/getting_started/setup_your_environment.md": [
      "DENO_NO_PROMPT",
      "DENO_WEBGPU_TRACE"
    ],
    "runtime/reference/cli/env_variables.md": [
      "DENO_NO_PROMPT",
      "DENO_WEBGPU_TRACE"
    ]
  }
}

Script used to generate the comparison data:

juxtapose.ts:

function compareBase(a: string, b: string): number {
	return a.localeCompare(b, "en-US", { sensitivity: "base" });
}

const lists: Array<{
	difference: Set<string>;
	list: Set<string>;
	name: string;
}> = ([
	["cli help command", [
		"DENO_AUTH_TOKENS",
		"DENO_CERT",
		"DENO_DIR",
		"DENO_FUTURE",
		"DENO_INSTALL_ROOT",
		"DENO_NO_PACKAGE_JSON",
		"DENO_NO_UPDATE_CHECK",
		"DENO_TLS_CA_STORE",
		"HTTP_PROXY",
		"HTTPS_PROXY",
		"NO_COLOR",
		"NO_PROXY",
		"NPM_CONFIG_REGISTRY",
	]],
	["runtime/manual/basics/env_variables.md", [
		"DENO_AUTH_TOKENS",
		"DENO_CERT",
		"DENO_DIR",
		"DENO_INSTALL_ROOT",
		"DENO_JOBS",
		"DENO_NO_PACKAGE_JSON",
		"DENO_NO_PROMPT",
		"DENO_NO_UPDATE_CHECK",
		"DENO_REPL_HISTORY",
		"DENO_TLS_CA_STORE",
		"DENO_V8_FLAGS",
		"HTTP_PROXY",
		"HTTPS_PROXY",
		"NO_COLOR",
		"NO_PROXY",
		"NPM_CONFIG_REGISTRY",
	]],
	["runtime/manual/getting_started/setup_your_environment.md", [
		"DENO_AUTH_TOKENS",
		"DENO_CERT",
		"DENO_DIR",
		"DENO_INSTALL_ROOT",
		"DENO_NO_PACKAGE_JSON",
		"DENO_NO_PROMPT",
		"DENO_NO_UPDATE_CHECK",
		"DENO_TLS_CA_STORE",
		"DENO_WEBGPU_TRACE",
		"HTTP_PROXY",
		"HTTPS_PROXY",
		"NO_COLOR",
		"NO_PROXY",
		"NPM_CONFIG_REGISTRY",
	]],
	["runtime/reference/cli/env_variables.md", [
		"DENO_AUTH_TOKENS",
		"DENO_CERT",
		"DENO_DIR",
		"DENO_INSTALL_ROOT",
		"DENO_NO_PACKAGE_JSON",
		"DENO_NO_PROMPT",
		"DENO_NO_UPDATE_CHECK",
		"DENO_TLS_CA_STORE",
		"DENO_WEBGPU_TRACE",
		"HTTP_PROXY",
		"HTTPS_PROXY",
		"NO_COLOR",
		"NO_PROXY",
		"NPM_CONFIG_REGISTRY",
	]],
] satisfies [name: string, list: string[]][]).sort(([a], [b]) =>
	compareBase(a, b)
).map(([name, list]) => ({
	difference: new Set(),
	list: new Set(list.sort(compareBase)),
	name,
}));

let common: Set<string> = lists.values().next().value.list;
for (const { list } of lists) common = common.intersection(list);
for (const o of lists) o.difference = o.list.difference(common);

console.log(JSON.stringify(
	{
		common: [...common],
		differences: Object.fromEntries(
			[...lists].map((o) => [o.name, [...o.difference]]),
		),
	},
	null,
	2,
));

It will be helpful to unify the lists across all sources and keep them in parity.

I will create mirror of this issue in the CLI repository for tracking purposes and reference it here.

[jsejcksn]

Ref:

• Ensure that environment variables in the help text are exhaustive (and keep in parity with docs) deno#25413
• Mention DENO_KV_ACCESS_TOKEN in env vars docs #225

[jsejcksn]

I guess because the CLI now references the URL https://docs.deno.com/go/env-vars, this is the location that should display the consolidated list.