Summary

While running the SvelteKit dev server (apps/web), I call auth.api.getSession from hooks.server.ts. The @project/auth package imports @project/db, which only reads from process.env without explicitly loading the env file. Because the SSR process runs with cwd = apps/web, dotenv only sees the frontend .env, so DATABASE_URL and DATABASE_AUTH_TOKEN remain empty. As a result, the database connection fails and the dev page returns HTTP 500.

Context

Monorepo Structure:

• Backend: apps/server
• Frontend (SvelteKit): apps/web

Environment Variables:

• Backend credentials (DATABASE_URL, DATABASE_AUTH_TOKEN, etc.) are stored in apps/server/.env
• apps/web/.env only contains PUBLIC_* variables

hooks.server.ts

import { auth } from "@project/auth";
import type { Handle } from "@sveltejs/kit";
import { svelteKitHandler } from "better-auth/svelte-kit";
import { building } from "$app/environment";

export const handle: Handle = async ({ event, resolve }) => {
  const session = await auth.api.getSession({
    headers: event.request.headers,
  });
  
  if (session) {
    event.locals.session = session.session;
    event.locals.user = session.user;
  }
  
  return svelteKitHandler({ event, resolve, auth, building });
};

Terminal Output

When running bun run dev inside apps/web:

Database URL: Not set
Database Auth Token: Not set
LibsqlError: URL_INVALID: The URL '' is not in a valid format
Error: Missing API key. Pass it to the constructor `new SomeService("key")`

Visiting http://localhost:5173 returns a 500 error.

Current Workaround

Add import "dotenv/config"; to packages/db/src/index.ts, then duplicate the backend credentials (DATABASE_URL, DATABASE_AUTH_TOKEN, etc.) into apps/web/.env.

Issue: Secrets are now duplicated across two env files.

Suggested Fix

Provide a shared helper so the auth/db packages always load the backend .env even when executed inside the frontend SSR process, or document that developers must keep the env variables in apps/server/.env and apps/web/.env in sync during development.