# Environment variables in circle.yml

**URL:** <https://discuss.circleci.com/t/environment-variables-in-circle-yml/10308>\
**Category:** Build Environment\
**Created:** [February 11, 2017, 8:42am UTC](https://discuss.circleci.com/t/environment-variables-in-circle-yml/10308 "2017-02-11T08:42:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Dark-Bob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5e925/32.png) [@Dark-Bob](https://discuss.circleci.com/u/Dark-Bob)\
**Post date:** [February 11, 2017, 8:42am UTC](https://discuss.circleci.com/t/environment-variables-in-circle-yml/10308/1 "2017-02-11T08:42:51Z")

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Hi, I’ve been trying to use environment variables to generalise in our circle.yml but they keep on being printed literally. The below circle.yml illustrates attempting to use a circle ci environment variable directly and another setting up an environment variable for the script in case that caused it to work differently

```
machine:
  environment:
    PROJECT_NAME: ${CIRCLE_PROJECT_REPONAME}

  services:
    - docker

dependencies:
  override:
    - docker info
    - docker build -t ${PROJECT_NAME}_${CIRCLE_BUILD_NUM} .

test:
    override:
        - docker run --net=host --name ${PROJECT_NAME}_test ${PROJECT_NAME}_${CIRCLE_BUILD_NUM} py.test

deployment:
  dump:
    branch: master
    commands:
      - docker save -o ${CIRCLE_ARTIFACTS}/${PROJECT_NAME}_${CIRCLE_BUILD_NUM}.tar ${PROJECT_NAME}_${CIRCLE_BUILD_NUM}

```

example output from circle:

```
$ docker run --net=host --name ${PROJECT_NAME}_test ${PROJECT_NAME}_${BUILD_NUM} py.test

```

As you can see the variables have not been substituted. All help appreciated.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dark-Bob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5e925/32.png) [@Dark-Bob](https://discuss.circleci.com/u/Dark-Bob)\
**Post date:** [February 11, 2017, 9:17pm UTC](https://discuss.circleci.com/t/environment-variables-in-circle-yml/10308/2 "2017-02-11T21:17:21Z")

</div>

Turns out it just doesn’t show up in the circleci reporting but exported artifacts are named correctly

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/circleci/original/3X/5/1/511608acda8e85906e15909b57bd0a46c1dbe291.png) [@system](https://discuss.circleci.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2018, 11:39am UTC](https://discuss.circleci.com/t/environment-variables-in-circle-yml/10308/3 "2018-06-18T11:39:09Z")

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