[CT-2785] [Feature] support .env file

[RobbertDM]

Is this your first time submitting a feature request?

• I have read the expectations for open source contributors
• I have searched the existing issues, and I could not find an existing issue for this feature
• I am requesting a straightforward extension of existing dbt functionality, rather than a Big Idea better suited to a discussion

Describe the feature

It would be cool if you could just drop a .env file in the directory next to dbt_project.yml and profiles.yml so you can do dbt run --env_file=./.env or even specify env_file: .env in your profiles.yml.

Describe alternatives you've considered

I think many people are now doing set -a; source .env; set +a before dbt run.

Who will this benefit?

Anyone who has their environment variables specified in a .env file.
Typically, that would contain db hostname and credentials, e.g. POSTGRES_USER=my_postgres_user.

Are you interested in contributing this feature?

No response

Anything else?

No response

[jtcohen6]

@RobbertDM I agree!

What do you think of the dbt.env file that I'm proposing in this related issue?

• [CT-1470] Whither UserConfig? #6207 (comment)

[RobbertDM]

Looks good, for us it's mostly about not checking credentials into git but still being able to share the profiles.yml across team members, so atm we work with the above set -a; source .env; set +a. Your proposal would get rid of that, so I'm happy with it :)

We also use the same .env file to set environment variables for other software (custom python scripts), but we can always just ln -s .env dbt.env.

[jtcohen6]

Right on — I'm going to close this one in favor of #6207

[sdebruyn]

Since the linked tickets have been closed and this has been kicked out of scope there, might be good to reopen this issue. Basically all we want is that dbt reads a .env file and that I can access those vars using env_var() in jinja.