ENV to JSON

What this tool converts

This tool parses standard .env-file syntax (KEY=value, one per line) into a JSON object. It skips blank lines and lines starting with # (comments), splits each line on the first = so values containing = signs are preserved, and strips a single layer of matching single or double quotes around the value.

It does not evaluate variable references (${OTHER_VAR}), multiline values, or export prefixes — each line is treated as a plain literal string, matching the behavior of the simplest .env parsers rather than a full shell-syntax implementation.

When to use it

Use it when you need to feed .env values into a system that expects JSON — a Node config loader, a CI pipeline's environment injection step, a Kubernetes ConfigMap generator, or documentation that shows both formats side by side. It's also useful for quickly reviewing a .env file's contents in a structured view instead of scanning raw KEY=value lines, especially when checking for accidental duplicate keys (the last one wins, matching real .env loader behavior).

For turning the same .env content into a docker-compose environment section instead of JSON, use the companion ENV to Docker Compose tool.

Example

Input DATABASE_URL=postgres://localhost:5432/app\nAPI_KEY="sk-test-123"\n# staging config\nDEBUG=true converts to {"DATABASE_URL": "postgres://localhost:5432/app", "API_KEY": "sk-test-123", "DEBUG": "true"} — the comment line is dropped, and the quotes around the API key are stripped, but DEBUG stays the string "true" rather than becoming a boolean.