The env option

The env option is used to set environment variables for the client side and the server side of your Nuxt app. The default for this option is an empty object, {}. This option is useful when you use axios in your project.

Take the following example:

// nuxt.config.js
export default {
  env: {
    baseUrl: process.env.BASE_URL || 'http://localhost:3000'
  }
}

Then, you can the env property in the axios plugin, as follows:

// plugins/axios.js
import axios from 'axios'

export default axios.create({
  baseURL: process.env.baseUrl
})

Now, the baseURL option is set to localhost:3000, or whatever BASE_URL is if it is defined. We can set BASE_URL in package.json, as follows:

// package.json
"scripts": {
  "start": "cross-env BASE_URL=https://your-domain-name.com nuxt start"
}

You will need to install cross-env for the preceding example to work on Windows:

$ npm i cross-env --save-dev

We will get to plugins in Chapter 6, Writing...