Variables meow reads
Set these to change meow’s behavior.
| Variable | Effect |
|---|
MEOW_HOME | Relocate the global ~/.meow tree (cache, bin, global installs). Child runtimes inherit it. |
MEOW_DANGEROUSLY_DISABLE_SECURITY | =1 grants full host access on every run — equivalent to --trust. |
MEOW_NO_SHIM | =1 makes the node/npm/… shims exec the real system binary instead of re-entering meow. |
MEOW_METADATA_MAX_AGE_SECS | Freshness window (seconds) for cached registry metadata. Default 300. 0 always revalidates; a large value stays effectively offline. |
MEOW_INSTALL_TRACE | When set, prints per-phase install timings (resolve, lockfile, materialize) to stderr. |
MEOW_TSC | Path to a specific tsc binary for meow types (the contributor type-gen command). |
NODE_OPTIONS | meow reads --max-old-space-size=<MiB> from it, for drop-in compatibility. |
Terminal & output control
The UI engine resolves its rendering from standard terminal signals — so meow
plays well with CI and pipelines automatically.
| Variable | Effect |
|---|
NO_COLOR | Disable all color. |
FORCE_COLOR | Force color depth (0 off, 1/2/3 for 16/256/truecolor). |
CLICOLOR_FORCE | Non-0 forces color even when not a TTY. |
CI | When set, meow assumes a non-interactive environment (no animations). |
TERM, COLORTERM, TERM_PROGRAM | Detect color/Unicode capabilities. |
COLUMNS | Width hint for layout. |
LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE | UTF-8 detection for glyphs. |
In a pipe or CI, meow drops spinners, animations, and ANSI automatically — output
stays clean and greppable. You rarely need to set these by hand.
Variables meow sets
When meow runs your code, it injects a few variables so Node-style tooling finds
its bearings:
| Variable | Value |
|---|
MEOW_NODE_SHIM | 1 while running through meow, so re-entrant node calls route correctly. |
MEOW_EXEC_PATH | Path to the meow binary. |
MEOW_NODE_PLATFORM / MEOW_NODE_ARCH | Normalized platform/arch (darwin/win32/linux, arm64/x64). |
NODE / npm_node_execpath | Path to the shimmed node, so tools spawn “the current Node” back into meow. |
INIT_CWD | The directory a package.json script was invoked from. |
npm_lifecycle_event / npm_lifecycle_script | The script name and body, npm-style. |
npm_package_json | Absolute path to the project package.json. |
TZ=UTC and a fixed locale before creating
the isolate — see Determinism.
How process.env behaves
process.env exists only in node-compat (there is no
process global in strict-web at all). What it contains depends on your grant:
node-compat (default)
strict-web (default)
process.env is populated from the full host environment, like Node.meow run app.ts # process.env has everything
meow run app.ts --allow-env=API_BASE,LOG_LEVEL
The host environment is invisible — there is no process global, and the
hermetic env seam returns nothing. Grant access explicitly:meow run app.ts --allow-env=API_BASE # only API_BASE resolves
meow run app.ts --allow-env # everything visible
Permissions & trust
The full grant model for env, clock, and randomness.
