Netlify global in functions v2

Support
1

The documentation for functions since v2 says that there is a Netlify global object, and that this object has an env field for getting environment variables. However, when my function attempts to use the Netlify.env interface I get a reference error:

"ReferenceError: Netlify is not defined"

indicating that the Netlify object is probably absent. Is the documentation incorrect?

2

This is supposed to be fixed: fix: make Netlify.env working by injecting it in the entry file by lukasholzer · Pull Request #1618 · netlify/zip-it-and-ship-it (github.com), which has since been added in this version: Release functions-utils: v5.2.37 · netlify/build (github.com).

I think it would be released in the coming week. Let us know if not.

3

Any progress on this? I’m still seeing the issue.

4

Are you sure you’re using v2 API? It won’t be available in the Lambda API.

5

I’m certain. I re-engineered existing functions to export default, receive Request objects and return Response objects. If I was on old functions they’d throw an error very quickly (upon using the headers interface). They otherwise work exactly as v2 functions are documented. There’s simply no Netlify global object. I am, however, able to use the Node.js process.env global.

Edit: To be clear, these functions are in production and do the job they’re supposed to do. I rely on global access to environment variables though, so I’m using a wrapper function which attempts to get environment variables from Netlify.env(...), or falls back to process.env[...] (logging whichever worked). The logs from this are how I know there’s still a problem with Netlify.env. You can see that wrapper here (not my finest code, be kind).

7

Interesting. I have asked the devs to take another look.

8

Hey @qubyte, thanks for reporting this! I looked into it, and was able to reproduce it with this function:

const bar = Netlify.env.get("FOO")

export default () => {
  return new Response(bar);
};

export const config = { path: "/*" };

interestingly, this function works:

- const bar = Netlify.env.get("FOO")

export default () => {
-  return new Response(bar);
+  return new Response(Netlify.env.get("FOO"));
};

export const config = { path: "/*" };

So the problem seems to be that user code is being evaluated, before our system code populates the Netlify global. I’ll look into how we can fix that!