cross-env is a lightweight npm package enabling cross-platform environment variable setting. It allows you to set environment variables that work consistently across different operating systems, especially Windows, by abstracting away the platform-specific syntax discrepancies. This ensures your npm scripts and application behave predictably regardless of the user's OS. cross-env simplifies development setups and testing, especially when building cross-platform Node.js applications or libraries reliant on specific environment variables.
Cross-env's release frequency has been highly variable. Initially, releases were frequent in late 2015 and throughout 2016-2017. After a period of slower updates, releases became sporadic. From 2021 through June 2025, there were no releases for four and a half years. A single release happened in July 2025.
Cross-env npm package downloads show a generally upward trend from March 2024 to August 2025, ranging from 22.9 million to 44.4 million. September 2025 data, being incomplete, shows significantly lower downloads at 8.6 million.
