Tools Practical By Samson Tanimawo, PhD Published Mar 7, 2026 4 min read

direnv for Per-Directory Env Vars

direnv loads .envrc on cd.

Setup

.envrc in project root with export VAR=value.

direnv allow approves it; loads on cd.

Safety

Approval required per file. Prevents arbitrary code execution from cloned repos.

Re-approve on file change.

Scope

Per-project credentials, AWS_PROFILE, etc.

Less leakage across projects.