Using Environment Variables in a TFS2015 build

Question

I am trying to set up an API-key to be a global variable that is accessible across all of my TFS2015 Builds. Since TFS2015 seems to lack this feature, I am attempting to use a system environment variable on the build server that is then referenced in the build definitions.

According to Microsoft's documentation, this should be possible. So I have set up a system variable (call it APIKey) on the build server and referenced it within the arguments of a build step using the standard syntax (i.e. "ApiKey=$(APIKey)"). However, instead of replacing the variable with the API-key in the system variable it is trying to use $(APIKey) as the value and causing the build to fail.

It also occurred to me that this custom environment variable would instead be set somewhere in the build agent folder itself but, after some poking around, I'm not sure where or how I would do that.

Are either of these things actually doable?

Did you reboot the build agent machine after add the system variable? — Eddie Chen - MSFT
– Eddie Chen - MSFT, Commented May 10, 2016 at 0:32

Eddie Chen - MSFT · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-10 00:39:32Z

2

Following are my steps to achieve this:

Create a system variable on build agent machine:
Restart the build agent machine.
Use the variable in build definition. Here I use cmd task as an example and use the $(testvar) as its argument:

The task will read the value from system variable as following:

answered May 10, 2016 at 0:39

Eddie Chen - MSFT

30k2 gold badges49 silver badges60 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

1 Comment

Daniel Mann Over a year ago

I don't think you'd need to restart the entire machine -- just the agent service. System environment variables are copied when the process starts, so restarting the process should pick up the new values.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Using Environment Variables in a TFS2015 build

1 Answer 1

1 Comment

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

1 Comment

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related