Undocumented Variables

What it detects

Keys that exist in .env but are not listed in .env.example. These are variables that other developers won’t know about when setting up the project.

Caution

Undocumented variables are reported as warnings. They won’t crash anything, but they make onboarding harder.

Example

Given .env.example:

APP_NAME=
DB_HOST=

And .env:

APP_NAME=myapp
DB_HOST=localhost
DEBUG_MODE=true
FEATURE_FLAG_X=1

envaudit reports:

Undocumented variables (in .env but not in .env.example)
  ⚠ DEBUG_MODE
  ⚠ FEATURE_FLAG_X

Why it matters

When a new developer clones the project, they copy .env.example to .env. If variables are missing from .env.example, the new developer won’t know to set them, leading to subtle differences between environments.

Fix

Add the missing keys to .env.example with placeholder values, or run envaudit sync to add them automatically.