process.env.<UNSET> is non-nullish, breaking `process.env.X ?? default`

[proggeramlug]

Problem

Reading an unset env var via process.env.FOO returns a value that is falsy but not nullish, so the idiomatic process.env.FOO ?? 'default' does not apply the default. This silently produced a schemeless URL in a server I was building, and fetch then failed with the opaque Fetch error: builder error.

Repro (perry 0.5.1022)

const v = process.env.DEFINITELY_UNSET_VAR_XYZ;
console.log('typeof:', typeof v);              // typeof: string
console.log('value:', JSON.stringify(v));      // value: null
console.log('?? :', JSON.stringify(v ?? 'FALLBACK'));  // ?? : null   (no fallback!)
console.log('|| :', JSON.stringify(v || 'FALLBACK'));  // || : "FALLBACK"

So:

• typeof says string
• JSON.stringify says null
• ?? does not treat it as nullish → no fallback
• || does treat it as falsy → fallback works

Node's behavior: process.env.UNSET is undefined, and undefined ?? 'x' → 'x'.

Impact

Any code using the extremely common process.env.X ?? default pattern gets a wrong value for unset vars. The downstream failure is far away and opaque (in my case a reqwest builder error from a schemeless URL three call-frames later). This is a sharp edge: the code looks correct and works under Node/Bun, then misbehaves only when compiled by Perry with the var unset.

Expected

process.env.<unset> should be undefined (nullish), so ?? falls back. At minimum the typeof/JSON.stringify/?? results should agree with each other.

Workaround

Use process.env.X || default instead of ?? default. Documented this in my codebase, but ?? is the more correct operator (it shouldn't swallow a legitimately empty-string env var) so the runtime behavior is the thing to fix.

Found while building playground.perryts.com.