yq - inserting JSON as a raw string - json

Question

I am writing a GitHub Action that does some CD and it uses yq to insert environment variables into a yaml file for deployment.
I'm trying to read a JSON from a GH secret that will eventually be read from env and loaded into python, where said string will be evaluated as a dictionary.
Running this in a terminal, for example:
yq -i '.value="{\"web\": \"test\"}"' test.yaml
Gives me:
value: '{"web": "test"}'
But in a Github Action, where I am doing this:
env:
JSON="{\"web\": \"test\"}"
...
- name: test
run : |
yq -i '
.value=strenv(JSON)
' deployment.yaml
Gives me:
Error: Bad expression, please check expression syntax
Doing other variations of that string, e.g. '{\"web\": \"test\"}', '\"{\"web\": \"test\"}\"' etc also gives me the same error.
I've tried searching on the yq repository and consulted the documentation but can't seem to find what I am looking for.
To summarise, my problem is that I want to read a JSON string as a string when it is evaluated by yq.

Answer 1

One of yq users has recently contributed to yq's github action docs regarding using env variables in github actions - it may help here:
- name: Get an entry with a variable that might contain dots or spaces
id: get_username
uses: mikefarah/yq#master
with:
cmd: yq '.all.children.["${{ matrix.ip_address }}"].username' ops/inventories/production.yml
- name: Reuse a variable obtained in another step
run: echo ${{ steps.get_username.outputs.result }}
See https://mikefarah.gitbook.io/yq/usage/github-action for more info.
Disclaimer: I wrote yq