Variables in pipelines
Bitbucket Pipelines provides a set of default variables as well as the ability to define your own variables. You can mark variables as secured for additional security of your passwords, tokens, and other values.
See also What is a slug?
Reference variables in your pipeline
Variables are configured as environment variables in the build container. You can access the variables from the bitbucket-pipelines.yml file or any script that you invoke by referring to them in the following way:
$AWS_SECRETwhere AWS_SECRET is the name of the variable.
Default variables
Pipelines provides a set of default variables that are available for builds, and can be used in scripts.
You can override the default variables by specifying a variable with the same name.
| Default variable | Description |
|---|---|
CI
| Default value is true. Gets set whenever a pipeline runs. |
BITBUCKET_BUILD_NUMBER | The unique identifier for a build. It increments with each build and can be used to create unique artifact names. |
BITBUCKET_CLONE_DIR | The absolute path of the directory that the repository is cloned into within the Docker container. |
| The commit hash of a commit that kicked off the build. |
BITBUCKET_WORKSPACE | The name of the workspace in which the repository lives. |
BITBUCKET_REPO_SLUG | The URL-friendly version of a repository name. For more information, see What is a slug?. |
BITBUCKET_REPO_UUID | The UUID of the repository. |
BITBUCKET_REPO_FULL_NAME | The full name of the repository (everything that comes after http://bitbucket.org/). |
BITBUCKET_BRANCH | The source branch. This value is only available on branches. Not available for builds against tags, or custom pipelines. |
BITBUCKET_TAG | The tag of a commit that kicked off the build. This value is only available on tags. Not available for builds against branches. |
BITBUCKET_BOOKMARK
| For use with Mercurial projects. |
BITBUCKET_PARALLEL_STEP | Zero-based index of the current step in the group, for example: 0, 1, 2, … Not available outside a parallel step. |
BITBUCKET_PARALLEL_STEP_COUNT | Total number of steps in the group, for example: 5. Not available outside a parallel step. |
BITBUCKET_PR_ID | The pull request ID Only available on a pull request triggered build. |
BITBUCKET_PR_DESTINATION_BRANCH | The pull request destination branch (used in combination with Only available on a pull request triggered build. |
BITBUCKET_GIT_HTTP_ORIGIN | The URL for the origin, for example: http://bitbucket.org/<account>/<repo> |
BITBUCKET_GIT_SSH_ORIGIN | Your SSH origin, for example: git@bitbucket.org:/<account>/<repo>.git |
| The exit code of a step, can be used in after-script sections. Values can be 0 (success) or 1 (failed) |
User-defined variables
You can add, edit, or remove variables at the account, repository, and deployment environment levels. If you use the same name as an existing variable, you can override it. The order of overrides is Deployment > Repository > Account > Default variables. Each deployment environment is independent so you can use the same variable name with different values for each environment.
Names can only contain ASCII letters, digits and underscores
Names are case-sensitive
Names can't start with a digit
Variables can't contain line breaks. If you need a variable containing a line break, then use the base64 or openssl command to encode your variable and add the output to your variables. Then within your bitbucket-pipelines.yml file decode the variable to use it in your scripts.
Team and individual account variables
Variables specified for a team or an individual account can be accessed from all repositories that belong to the team or account. You must be an administrator to manage team variables.
To manage team or individual account variables:
- From your avatar in the bottom left, select a workspace.
- Select an individual account or a team for which you want to configure variables:
- In the menu on the left, go to Pipelines > Account variables.
Workspaces or individual account variables can be overridden by repository variables.
Workspaces or individual account variables can be accessed by all users with the write permission for any repository (private or public) that belongs to the team or account.
You must be an administrator of an account or a repository to manage variables respectively.
Repository variables
Variables added at the repository level can be accessed by any users with the push permission in the repository.
You can manage repository variables in Settings > Pipelines > Repository variables .
Repository variables override team variables.
Deployment variables
You can also define variables so that they can only be used in a specific deployment environment.
You can manage deployment variables in Settings > Pipelines > Deployments.
Deployment variables override both team and repository variables, and are unique to each environment.
Secured variables
You can secure a variable, which means it can be used in your scripts but its value will be hidden in the build logs (see example below). If you want to edit a secure variable, you can only give it a new value or delete it. Secure variables are stored as encrypted values. Click the padlock to secure the variable.
Secured variable masking
Pipelines masks secure variables so they are not disclosed to your team members viewing build logs. If a value matching a secured variable appears in the logs, Pipelines will replace it with $VARIABLE_NAME.
This can lead to confusion about whether secured variables are working properly, so here's an example of how it works.
First, we have created a secure variable, MY_HIDDEN_NUMBER, with a value of 5.
Then we used this bitbucket-pipelines.yml file:
pipelines:
default:
- step:
script:
- expr 10 / $MY_HIDDEN_NUMBER
- echo $MY_HIDDEN_NUMBERThe value of the variable can be used by the script, but will not be revealed in the logs. It is replaced with the name of the variable, $MY_HIDDEN_NUMBER.
Note: Pipelines masks all occurrences of a secure variable's value in your log files, regardless of how that output was generated.
If you have secure variable value set to a common word, that word will be replaced with the variable name anywhere it appears in the log file. Secured variables are designed to be used for unique authentication tokens and passwords and so are unlikely to be also used in clear text.
Pipelines also matches some basic encodings of the variable value, like URL encoding, to prevent variables being displayed when used in URLs.