Environment Modes

Turborepo supports different modes for handling environment variables during task execution.

Strict Mode (Default)

Only explicitly configured variables are available to tasks.

Behavior:

• Tasks only see vars listed in env, globalEnv, passThroughEnv, or globalPassThroughEnv
• Unlisted vars are filtered out
• Tasks fail if they require unlisted variables

Benefits:

• Guarantees cache correctness
• Prevents accidental dependencies on system vars
• Reproducible builds across machines

# Explicit (though it's the default)
turbo run build --env-mode=strict

Loose Mode

All system environment variables are available to tasks.

turbo run build --env-mode=loose

Behavior:

• Every system env var is passed through
• Only vars in env/globalEnv affect the hash
• Other vars are available but NOT hashed

Risks:

• Cache may restore incorrect results if unhashed vars changed
• "Works on my machine" bugs
• CI vs local environment mismatches

Use case: Migrating legacy projects or debugging strict mode issues.

Framework Inference (Automatic)

Turborepo automatically detects frameworks and includes their conventional env vars.

Inferred Variables by Framework

Framework	Pattern
Next.js	NEXT_PUBLIC_*
Vite	VITE_*
Create React App	REACT_APP_*
Gatsby	GATSBY_*
Nuxt	NUXT_*, NITRO_*
Expo	EXPO_PUBLIC_*
Astro	PUBLIC_*
SvelteKit	PUBLIC_*
Remix	REMIX_*
Redwood	REDWOOD_ENV_*
Sanity	SANITY_STUDIO_*
Solid	VITE_*

Disabling Framework Inference

Globally via CLI:

turbo run build --framework-inference=false

Or exclude specific patterns in config:

{
  "tasks": {
    "build": {
      "env": ["!NEXT_PUBLIC_*"]
    }
  }
}

Why Disable?

• You want explicit control over all env vars
• Framework vars shouldn't bust the cache (e.g., analytics IDs)
• Debugging unexpected cache misses

Checking Environment Mode

Use --dry-run to see which vars affect each task:

turbo run build --dry-run=json | jq '.tasks[].environmentVariables'