How to set environment variable in node.js process when deploying with github action

Question

I am trying to build an CI pipeline for my node.js server using github actions.

I just need to solve one issue. I need to set environment variable, so that my node.js server can access the env variable via process.env

Below is the github action workflow file.

name: Build and Deploy to GKE

on:
  pull_request:
    branches:
      - master

# Environment variables available to all jobs and steps in this workflow
env:
  ENGINE_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.ENGINE_API_KEY }}

jobs:
  setup-build-publish-deploy:
    name: Setup, Build, Publish, and Deploy
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v2

      - name: Apollo Schema Update
        env:
          ENGINE_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.ENGINE_API_KEY }}
        run: |
          sudo npm install
          sudo npm install -g apollo
          sudo npm run dev &
          sleep 3
          sudo apollo service:push --serviceURL=http://auth-cluster-ip-service --serviceName=auth --tag=master --endpoint=http://localhost:3051

I have tried declaring environment variable both workflow level and job's level, but when I console.log(process.env.ENGINE_API_KEY), it returns undefined.

I also tried ENGINE_API_KEY=$ENGINE_API_KEY npm run dev & instead of npm run dev &. This works on my macbook, but with github action, it still returns undefined.

(I did store ENGINE_API_KEY in settings -> secret. worked fine for other variables)

Answer 1

Create an .env file that can be read by your node server and pass in your repository secret that way. This should be done after your checkout step:

    - name: create env file
      run: |
        touch .env
        echo ENGINE_API_KEY=${{ secrets.ENGINE_API_KEY }} >> .env