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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://botflow.io/docs/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

The ENV tab (in the sidebar when Code view is active) lets you manage environment variables for your project. Variables are injected into the WebContainer’s process environment and are available to your app at runtime.

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Viewing variables

Switch to Code view, then click the ENV tab in the left sidebar. The panel shows two sections:

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System variables (read-only)

These are set automatically by the platform and cannot be changed. A common example is VITE_CONVEX_URL, which is injected whenever your project has a Convex backend configured. Your app can read these like any other env variable.

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User variables

Variables you add yourself. These are persisted with the project and restored every time you open the workspace.

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Adding a variable

In the ADD VARIABLE section at the bottom of the ENV panel:
  1. Enter the key (automatically uppercased, e.g. STRIPE_SECRET_KEY).
  2. Enter the value.
  3. Optionally check Mark as secret — secret values are masked in the UI after saving and never shown in plaintext again.
  4. Click + Add.
The variable is immediately available in new terminal sessions and on the next dev server start. Running processes need to be restarted to pick up changes.
Prefix variables with VITE_ (for Vite-based web projects) to make them accessible in browser-side code. Without the prefix, the variable is only available in Node.js/server contexts.

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Bulk import

Click the upload icon at the top of the ENV panel to paste in a .env file’s contents all at once. The format is standard dotenv: 
DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:password@host/db
STRIPE_SECRET_KEY=sk_live_...
NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL=https://api.example.com
All variables are parsed and added. Duplicates overwrite existing values.

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Exporting variables

Click the download icon to export all user variables as a .env file. Secrets are excluded from the export for security.

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How variables are used

  • Dev server — variables are injected into the WebContainer’s environment before the dev server starts. Your Vite or Next.js app can read them via import.meta.env.VITE_* or process.env.*.
  • Deploy — when you publish to Cloudflare Pages, user variables are bundled into the build environment. Secrets are passed as encrypted Cloudflare environment variables.
  • AI agent — the agent does not read variable values, only their keys. This means the agent can reference VITE_CONVEX_URL in generated code without ever seeing the actual URL.

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Security

  • Secrets are stored encrypted in Botflow’s database and are never included in exports or logs.
  • Non-secret variables are stored in plaintext and visible to anyone with access to the project.
  • Never put production secrets (payment keys, database passwords) in non-secret variables.