Step 3: Run Heroku Locally

Step 3: Run Heroku Locally

Heroku’s CLI has a feature that allows us to run application locally in a “heroku production-like” environment

This is a great way to catch issues before deploying the production

a. Copy .env.local to .env

When running heroku locally it, heroku will automatically look for the .env (and not .env.local) for any potential environment variables

  • Run the following command from the project folder to copy .env.local to .env

    $ cp .env.local .env

Remember we needed .env.local to meet Parcel’s requirements of using environment variables using its web server

  • Add .env to .gitignore

    .env.local
/node_modules
.env


b. Run the application locally

  • In your terminal, run the following command (from within the project folder) to start the application locally using heroku

    $ heroku local

  • Heroku’s local default web server is http://localhost:5000, navigate to this url in your browser and confirm that the application works as expected