Consider dropping Oxygen.env and use process.env instead

[jplhomer]

In #55, we decided to introduce first-class Oxygen.env support for Hydrogen. This was designed around the intent that Oxygen would inject this in its Web runtime.

However, we've since pivoted away from that plan, and Oxygen is no longer going to do that. This means Hydrogen is responsible for injecting this variable on its own.

This is confusing for a number of reasons, primarily because it means Hydrogen builds a unique affordance for runtime environment variables that doesn't exist on any platform — literally.

Meanwhile, Vite now supports process.env in SSR runtimes (it previously did not).

I propose that we adopt process.env for runtime environment variables in Hydrogen.

This means populating a process.env in our platforms/worker.ts file. It also means updating all instances of Oxygen.env with process.env.

I think this better matches the behavior in other frameworks deployed to Workers runtimes as well.

Drawbacks

• Does the presence of process trick any 3p libs into thinking we are running in Node, thus causing compatibility issues?
• Is it going to be confusing that other process properties are not available?

[wizardlyhel]

Would it in conflict with this?

https://github.com/Shopify/hydrogen/blob/v1.x-2022-07/packages/hydrogen/src/streaming.server.ts#L44-L46

export async function isStreamingSupported() {
  return Boolean(globalThis.Oxygen?.env?.HYDROGEN_ENABLE_WORKER_STREAMING);
}

which is currently preventing streaming from happening on any platform that is not Oxygen.

[jplhomer]

(I think we can remove that — checking to see if streaming is supported natively right now)

We also consider a Node.js streamable by default.

[davidhousedev]

Love this idea! Something else to consider: many packages key off 'process.env.NODE_ENV === "development"' in order to expose local dev warnings. If NODE_ENV is not set, you may even run into !== "production" checks which could leak dev warnings in prod environments.

Might there be other NODE_ENV vars that represent system architecture attributes where you could differentiate?

How does Cloudflare handle this in workers? Have they encountered any issues with library compat?

[benjaminsehl]

Now tracking in #1879

[frehner]

Duplicate of #1879