Environment Variable Management and Local Development Improvements

Summary

Refactors environment variable management to a fail-fast approach, removes dotenv dependency, and adds local development automation.

Changes

Environment Variable Management

• Removed dotenv from all services (except desktopApp)
• Added requireEnv() and requireEnvOptional() helpers for fail-fast validation
• Services exit immediately with clear error messages if required variables are missing
• Updated config files: centralApi, centralFederatedClient, fileServer, vaultFederatedClient

Local Development Scripts

• Created dev-start.js for each service:

  • Auto-initializes .env from .env.template if missing
  • Loads .env file (respects shell exports)
  • Runs npm start (includes build step)

• Created dev-start-all.sh:

  • Launches all services in separate terminal tabs (macOS/Linux)
  • Leaves original tab untouched
  • Includes startup delay for service dependencies

Webpack Configuration

• Disabled automatic browser opening (BROWSER=none)

Benefits

• Fail-fast configuration prevents runtime errors
• Single command launches all services
• Services always build on start
• No auto-opening browser tabs

Migration Notes

• .env.template files remain as documentation
• Developers create .env files (auto-created on first run)
• Production should set env vars externally
• dev-start.js scripts are development-only