Summary

We’re running a monorepo with multiple Next.js apps and packages using Turborepo + a self-hosted remote cache (ducktors/turborepo-remote-cache).

Remote caching works fine if these env vars are present:

• TURBO_API → cache server URL
• TURBO_TEAM → team slug
• TURBO_TOKEN → auth token

But we are looking for the best way to store/manage these across dev + CI.

Options we’ve explored

1. Root .env + dotenv-cli

Good

• Easy for devs (just copy .env.example).

Downside

• Every script needs a prefix:

  dotenv -e .env -- turbo run build
  
  

• Can’t run turbo run build directly since env vars aren’t auto-loaded and only load when using npm scripts.

2. .turbo/config.json committed to repo

• Works for non-secrets (API URL + team).
• ❌ Storing the token here = not secure.

3. turbo login --manual flow

• Dev runs turbo login --manual, enters token, and Turbo stores it at:

  /Users/[user]/Library/Application Support/turborepo/config.json
  

• ✅ Keeps secrets out of the repo.

Downside

• Manual + non-obvious.
• New joiners may not even know they need to do it.
• Not very intuitive.

Questions

• How are you handling these vars in your monorepo?
• Has anyone found a clean way to make .env loading for Turbo invisible to devs (no prefixing every script)?
• Do you prefer onboarding via .env.example or letting people run turbo login --manual?

Additional information

No response

Example

No response