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Using Environment Variables

Environment variables are essential for managing variables that need to be frequently accessed across multiple workflows. By storing these variables globally, they can be reused, making workflows more efficient and easier to manage.

Creating Environment Variables​

Environment variables can be created and stored in Orkes Conductor, that can be accessed later when required.

To create an environment variable:

  1. From Orkes Conductor Console, go to the Definitions > Environment Variables from the left menu.
  2. Click +New Environment Variable from the top-right corner of the page.
  3. Provide the following details:

Creating new environment variable in Orkes Conductor

  • Name - A unique identifier for the variable. This name will be used for referencing the variable in workflow definitions.
  • Value - The value to be stored as the variable.
  • Value Type - Choose between Plain Text or JSON.
  1. Click Add to save the variable.

Using Environment Variables in Workflows​

Once an environment variable is created, it can be utilized within workflows using the following syntax:

${workflow.env.variable-name}

Replace variable-name with the actual environment variable name.

Adding Tags to Environment Variables​

Tags can be used to provide permissions in bulk for the environment variables, allowing for access control via groups/applications.

To add tags to the environment variables:

  1. Navigate to Definitions > Environment Variables and click on the tag icon next to the required variable.

Adding tags to environment variable in Orkes Conductor

  1. Provide a name for the tag in the format key:value and click Save.

Tag format in environment variable

The tags are now added to the variable and can be utilized where bulk permission is required. Check out the documentation to learn more about providing bulk permissions using tags.

RBAC - Governance on who can access Environment Variables​

Access to the environment variables can be granted via Groups/Applications in Orkes Conductor.

To provide explicit permission to Groups:

  1. Navigate to Access Control > Groups from the left menu on your Orkes Conductor console.
  2. Create a new group or choose an existing group.
  3. Under the Permissions section, click +Add Permission.
  4. Under the Env variables tab, select the required variables with the required permissions.

RBAC for environment variable

  1. Click Add Permissions. This ensures that all the group members can access these environment variables in their workflows.

Similarly, you can also provide permissions to applications.

Sample Workflow​

Example Workflow

To illustrate the use of environment variables in a workflow, consider the following variable stored in Orkes Conductor.

Sample environment variable

To pass the variable as a parameter, you can define a workflow referencing the environment variable as shown below:

{
 "name": "sample-workflow",
 "description": "Workflow to demonstrate passing variables through environment variables",
 "version": 1,
 "tasks": [
   {
     "name": "http",
     "taskReferenceName": "http_ref",
     "inputParameters": {
       "uri": "${workflow.env.sample-url}",
       "method": "GET",
       "connectionTimeOut": 3000,
       "readTimeOut": "3000",
       "accept": "application/json",
       "contentType": "application/json",
       "encode": true
     },
     "type": "HTTP"
   }
 ],
 "schemaVersion": 2,
 "ownerEmail": "name@example.com"
}

The line "uri": "${workflow.env.sample-url}", indicates that the URI for the HTTP task is referred from the environment variable “sample-url” created before.

Run the workflow using the Run Workflow button from Conductor UI.

From the workflow execution page, you can verify that the stored variable has been passed as the URI for the HTTP task by clicking on the task and verifying the input parameters.

Verifying sample environment variable used in workflow definition