Github workflow does not read variables from environments - github-actions

Question

Following is my simple github workflow. It is intended to print an environment variable.
name: verify
on:
workflow_dispatch:
jobs:
read_env_variables:
environment: build
runs-on: [ self-hosted, onprem_dae, docker ]
steps:
- name: cat on branch file
run: |
echo ${{ env.SOME_VARIABLE }}
I have created an environment named "build". In this environment, I have an environment variable named SOME_VARIABLE set to xyz.
When the workflow is triggered, I expected to echo value xyz but actual value is "". Is there something missing?

Answer 1

Your issue here is related to the syntax.
To use the ${{ env.SOME_VARIABLE }} syntax, you need to set an env variable at the workflow, job or step level.
Here is an example:
name: Environment Workflow
on:
workflow_dispatch:
env:
WORKFLOW_VARIABLE: WORKFLOW
jobs:
job1:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
env:
JOB_VARIABLE: JOB
steps:
- name: Run Commands with various variables
if: ${{ env.WORKFLOW_VARIABLE == 'WORKFLOW' }}
env:
STEP_VARIABLE: STEP
run: |
echo "Hello World"
echo "This is the $WORKFLOW_VARIABLE environment variable"
echo "This is the $JOB_VARIABLE environment variable"
echo "This is the $STEP_VARIABLE environment variable"
Now, if you want to use the environment secrets for deployment, as explained here on the Github Documentation, the syntax would be different using the job_id.environment as you are already using following this doc.
Here is an example:
job4:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
environment: build
steps:
- name: Show repo env secret
run: |
echo ${{ secrets.REPO_ENV_SECRET }}
Note that this variable is a secret, therefore you won't be able to see it through an echo command on the step (it will show ***)
Here is the workflow I used to validate all this implementation if you want to take a look:
workflow yaml file
workflow run