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Where I can find full list of Bitrise default environment variables with actual values?

I can see list of variables in Select variable dialog:

Select variable image

but there's no possibility to check their values. I don't want to print all of them in command line using echo and check their values. Would be nice to have this information in bitrise.io documentation, which is missing at the moment.

I've found some bitrise* repositories in github, and in the source code of steps I was able to check some default values for environment variables. It's still not the desired result.

JAL
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Veaceslav Gaidarji
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    Documentation of default environment variables is now available here: https://devcenter.bitrise.io/faq/available-environment-variables – d4Rk Mar 07 '18 at 15:16

1 Answers1

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Why we don't have docs for the values: because it can change any time. The point of Environment Variables is that you can reference things where the value might change. The variable's meaning remains the same, but the value might change.

For example, $BITRISE_SOURCE_DIR refers to the main working directory, which (by default) is the code directory (where your code is git cloned). On the OS X stack it's usually /Users/vagrant/git, on the Android Docker stack it's usually /bitrise/src; but we don't guarantee that the location won't change in the future, and you can change this location as well.

Another important thing is, if you use the bitrise CLI to run your automation on your own Mac, the $BITRISE_SOURCE_DIR environment variable will be set by bitrise to the directory you call bitrise from, which is usually the same directory as on bitrise.io VMs, the one with your code.

Why is this important? If you use the $BITRISE_SOURCE_DIR environment in your script instead of a hardcoded value, it'll refer to the same thing (the source code directory path), no matter which environment you use to run your automation.

Viktor Benei
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  • Well, got it. But I've used $BITRISE_IPA_PATH in step, and suddenly it had empty value. Would be nice to check where from comes this value, even if it might change in the future. Running a build for 10+ min. and checking if the variable had correct path - it's not a good idea. I can even understand/use something wrong. – Veaceslav Gaidarji Nov 26 '15 at 09:56
  • `$BITRISE_IPA_PATH` is not a bitrise.io specific Environment. This environment (`$BITRISE_IPA_PATH`) is generated by the Xcode Archive step usually, which means that if you remove the step the environment won't be available either, as there won't be anything to set it. – Viktor Benei Nov 26 '15 at 10:07
  • What's important in this case @VeaceslavGaidarji is that the "Select variable" popup includes the **available** variables, including previous steps' outputs. The list depends on which step you configure. For example, if you open it from the second step's input it'll show the first step's outputs (if any), but **not** the third and other subsequent steps' outputs, as those won't be available when the second step runs. – Viktor Benei Nov 26 '15 at 10:10
  • It means, that for safety, would be nice to override all variables, used in my steps, in order to be sure that they will have desired values. Am I correct? What's your advise here? – Veaceslav Gaidarji Nov 26 '15 at 10:15
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    The advise is to use the available Environment Variables, and to only override it if you really have to. For example, in case of the `$BITRISE_IPA_PATH` env var, if it's missing it means that it the file (.ipa) was **not** generated. Assigning a hard coded value for this environment won't really help, as you'll have the value but not the generated file. – Viktor Benei Nov 26 '15 at 10:28
  • The recommendation is that you should handle the case yourself when an env var is missing, because that means that the related file/information is not available (was not generated). – Viktor Benei Nov 26 '15 at 10:30