lets-cli/lets

usage question: cannot export .env variables using lets

Closed this issue · 2 comments

bgalvao commented

This is probably not an issue with lets-cli, just something I've looked up on stack overflow and cannot get it to work.

I want to export variables in a docker swarm project:

load-env:
    description: Loads environment variables specified in stacks/swarm.env into the current shell.
    cmd: set -a; . stacks/swarm.env; set +a

Running set -a; . stacks/swarm.env; set +a exports the variables in the env file, but running lets load-env does not. I haven't been able to figure out why.

I also tried export $(cat stacks/swarm.env) > /dev/null 2>&1; and it works the same way.

bgalvao commented

lets load-env works well as a dependency of other cmds, so this is a no issue for me.

kindermax commented

Sorry for the late response.

It is not possible to export env variables to your current shell using lets, for example

echo $MYVAR  # no variable in env
lets expose-env  # where export MYVAR=1 happens
echo $MYVAR  # still no variable

It is because lets starts new shell under the hood (basically sh -c)

But it you want to export vars to use them in lets cms itself - that should work:

mycommand:
  cmd: |
    export VAR1=1
    source .env # where export VAR2=2
    echo $VAR1 # shows 1
    echo $VAR2 # shows 2
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