--node-env doesn't set the mode as expected

[mgnsm]

According to the docs and this comment I should be able to use the --node-env option to set both process.env.NODE_ENV and mode but I cannot get this to work as expected.

Using the following webpack.config.js configuration:

const config = {};

module.exports = (env, argv) => {
  console.log("mode is " + argv.mode);
  console.log("process.env.NODE_ENV is " + process.env.NODE_ENV);

  return config;
};

...and the following package.json file:

{
  "name": "WebpackIssue",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "private": true,
  "devDependencies": {
    "webpack": "^5.89.0",
    "webpack-cli": "^5.1.4"
  },
  "scripts": {
    "build": "webpack build --node-env=production"
  }
}

Running the npm run build command outputs the following:

mode is undefined
process.env.NODE_ENV is production

Why is argv.mode undefined here? Do I still need to set the mode explicitly after all (like below) or what am I doing wrong?

webpack build --mode=production --node-env=production

[evenstensberg]

Thanks for the issue. It is fixed in #4009

[alexander-akait]

I want to say it works as expected, argv contains arguments which you provided as CLI arguments, i.e. you pass only --node-env, so just use argv.nodeEnv to get value, we set the mode option after loading configuration, also you can use process.env.NODE_ENV because we set it before loading configuration