envdiff

envdiff is a Go command-line tool that captures an environment as a JSON snapshot and compares snapshots to show what differs between machines, such as a local workstation and a CI runner. A snapshot records system info (OS, architecture, kernel, memory, CPU), runtime versions (go, node, python, docker, plus custom-defined tools), environment variables, and network info (/etc/hosts and listening ports). Secrets in environment variables are detected and redacted by default; --no-redact includes the values.

The envdiff compare command takes two or more snapshots (for example local, CI and staging) and produces a categorized diff, which can be saved with -o. envdiff render turns a saved snapshot or diff into terminal output or Markdown (--md), which can be pasted into a pull request or issue.

For validation, envdiff init creates an envdiff.yaml template and envdiff check tests the current machine against it. The file sets runtime version constraints (e.g. go: ">= 1.21.0"), required and expected environment variables, ignore patterns, required system packages, custom runtime probes (command, args, regex), and per-tool fix hints such as nvm use 20. check only probes the runtimes listed in the file. It supports --json and --quiet (exit code only), so it can run in CI jobs or hooks. It is aimed at developers and DevOps engineers debugging "works on my machine" problems. It runs on Linux, macOS and Windows.

Installation

# via Go install
go install github.com/GBerghoff/envdiff/cmd/envdiff@latest

# via Install script (Linux/macOS)
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/GBerghoff/envdiff/main/install.sh | sh