TIL: Node doesn't have environments

TIL: Node doesn't have environments

August 21, 2026

til

We all are familiar with different types of environments where our application is run:

Development

Testing

Staging

Production

People in Node use NODE_ENV environment variable to set/get the environment. But, as mentioned on the official getting started guide,

There is no difference between development and production in Node.js

Libraries use of NODE_ENV is purely conventional.

But, if you want to use NODE_ENV then the only possible value it can have is production.

setting NODE_ENV to anything but production is considered an antipattern.

Refer the Node.js, the difference between development and production for the exact details.

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