Set environment variables in task.json in vscode for WSL

Question

I tried to set environment variables for my Visual Studio Code tasks that will run in my Windows Subsystem Linux. However, it does not seem to work. Here is my tasks.json:

{
    // See https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=733558
    // for the documentation about the tasks.json format
    "version": "2.0.0",
    "tasks": [
        {
            "label": "test env",
            "type": "shell",
            "command": "echo",
            "args": [
                "$test"
            ],
            "options": {
                "env": {
                    "test": "test_string"
                }
            }

        },
    ]
}

The output is:

> Executing task in folder ex12-test: echo $test <



Terminal will be reused by tasks, press any key to close it.

Note that by default shell has been manually modified to C:\WINDOWS\SysNative\bash.exefor WSL, as recommended here and here.

See environment variable not found In your case you need to use $env:test — Mark
– Mark, Commented Jan 17, 2019 at 3:57
@Mark Thank you! I changed to ${env:test} and it still wouldn't work. It seems like the environment variable wasn't set at all. — Yuxiang Wang
– Yuxiang Wang, Commented Jan 18, 2019 at 6:29
@YuxiangWang the answer is here. You simply cannot reference environment variables set in this manner in the args or command of your tasks.json task definition. — njappboy
– njappboy, Commented Jul 4, 2019 at 11:58

Mark · Accepted Answer · 2019-01-22 03:38:57Z

23

The options object goes outside of any task, so:

format
  "version": "2.0.0",
  "options": {
      "env": {
        "test": "test_string"
      }
   }
   "tasks": [
    {
        "label": "test env",
        "type": "shell",
        "command": "echo",
        "args": [
            "$env:test"
        ],
    },

And then access the options argsuments like so:

$env:test  or    ${env:test}
]

edited Jan 22, 2019 at 3:38

answered Jan 18, 2019 at 15:41

Mark

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4 Comments

juanmah Over a year ago

It only worked me if I put "$test" instead of "$env:test".

godo Over a year ago

So it is not possible to set an environment variable for a specific task only?

Thomas Bui Over a year ago

@godo it's possible here: code.visualstudio.com/Docs/editor/tasks#_custom-tasks. Seems like you'd need to add an "options" object to the specific task

JohnRDOrazio Dec 5, 2024 at 2:43

also for me it only worked with "${test}" instead of "${env:test}"

Thomas Bui · Accepted Answer · 2022-05-26 19:15:00Z

6

What I eventually did for my VS Code (v1.67.1) is:

Add my env variables into a settings.json
Use the traditional %ENV_VAR% option.

So in the settings.json, create this:

{
  "terminal.integrated.env.windows": { // switch to your os, check `Open Workspace Settings` in the Command Pallete then search for `environment`
    "AWS_REGION": "us-east-2", 
    "AWS_ID": "my_id"
  }
}

In the tasks.json, use the proper ENV variable reference:

"command": "echo %AWS_REGION%"

answered May 26, 2022 at 19:15

Thomas Bui

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1 Comment

Mattia72 Over a year ago

In tasks.json, worked me only this: "command": "echo ${env:AWS_REGION}" It depends on used shell.

Andrew Santosa · Accepted Answer · 2024-12-28 05:20:01Z

0

If you need to set some environment variables for all tasks of the project, then you could skip configuring tasks.json and use direnv. Using this tool to set project-specific environment variables is mentioned in Gradle for Java - Visual Studio Code.

answered Dec 28, 2024 at 5:20

Andrew Santosa

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