Provide enviroment variables for production vue build - vue.js

Question

I would like to achieve following:
a Vue application is build with npm build,
then the /dist result is copied to some environment
in this enviroment I have some static setting file with name=value settings
the Vue application should read this setting from local folder where it is running or default to some setting
What is the best way to do this.

Answer 1

If you want "to inject" some settings to the bundled app so I think it can be possible only with another js file (globalConfig.js) with global object like:
window.myAppSettings = {
MY_VARIABLE: 'some_value'
}
Which will be copied somehow to your dist folder on a particular environment.
You should also prepare your app to reference that file:
Firstly, add this settings object as external lib in vue.config.js
module.exports = {
chainWebpack: config => {
config.externals({
'my-app-settings': 'myAppSettings'
})
}
}
So you can get your settings in code:
import mySettingsObject from 'my-app-settings'
//...
let myValue = mySettingsObject.MY_VARIABLE
Add reference to globalConfig.js in index.html file in the head section:
<script src="<%= BASE_URL %>globalConfig.js"></script>
Local Development
Probably you will need some default settings to be able to debug your app locally. In this case you can create localConfig.js in your public folder with some default values.
Then change your script in index.html to this:
<script src="<%= BASE_URL %><%= VUE_APP_GLOBAL_SETTINGS_VERSION %>Settings.js"></script>
Then create two files in the project root .env.local and .env.production:
// .env.local
VUE_APP_GLOBAL_SETTINGS_VERSION=local
and
// .env.production
VUE_APP_GLOBAL_SETTINGS_VERSION=global
So when you run npm run serve it will load your local config and your app will load localSettings.js.
And when it builds with npm run build it will load globalSettings.js because building uses a production mode by default.

Answer 2

If you created your project using Vue CLI 3 you can do like this.
Make sure your settings file is named .env and place it in your project root.
In the .env file, your variables should be prefixed with "VUE_APP_"
VUE_APP_SOMEKEY=SOME_KEY_VALUE.
Access them with process.env.*.
console.log(process.env.VUE_APP_SOMEKEY) // SOME_KEY_VALUE
Here's some more info on evironment variables in vue: Vue CLI 3 - Environment Variables and Modes
EDIT:
Sorry. I probably misunderstood your question. This solution will not work if your settings file is in the dist folder.