This little plugin uses python-dotenv to load any environment variables from a .env file. Extra configuration can be defined in any pytest config files, such as pytest.ini, tox.ini and so on.

Install the plugin with pip:

$ pip install pytest-dotenv

If all you want is to load environment variables from a .env file then installing the plugin is all that is needed. python-dotenv will automatically detect your .env file and load it. By default, the plugin won't override any existing system variables.

Add a new section to a config file named env_vars. You can list as many files as necessary:

[pytest]
env_files =
    .env
    .test.env
    .deploy.env

The files will be loaded and added to the os.environ dict object before any tests are run. If the files are not found on the working directory, it will search for the files in the ancestor directory and upwards.

By default the plugin will not override any variables already defined in the process' environment. If you want that behavior, you have to use the env_override_existing_values setting:

[pytest]
env_override_existing_values = 1
env_files =
    .env
    .test.env
    .deploy.env