How to access environment variables from `npm start`?

Question

I have set up an environment variable (on OSX):

export npm_package_config_test_user=user42

and a javascript file:

-- index.js --
console.log(process.env.npm_package_config_test_user);

which if I run like node index.js provides me with the expected answer. now, with this definition in the package.json :

  "scripts": {
    "start": "node index.js"
  },

I can do: npm start but when I do my environment variable value comes back as undefined .

so 2 questions:

1) why? and 2) what do I need to set up so I can pick up the value correctly?

thanks

Answer 1

so what I found is that npm clears the npm_package_* space before use, so I set the variable and it wipes it out when it runs. however, this works:

export test_user=user42