How to remove an environment variable on GitHub actions?

Context

On https://docs.github.com/en/actions/learn-github-actions/environment-variables they describe a way to add an environment variable with yaml:

jobs:
  job_name:
    env:
      NAME: value

On https://docs.github.com/en/actions/reference/workflow-commands-for-github-actions/#setting-an-environment-variable linked from the same place, shows how to add an environment variable from script steps:

echo "NAME=value" >> $GITHUB_ENV

Question

I'm looking for a way to do the opposite: given that an env var was added with one of the above options, fully remove it so that subsequent job steps don't see it either.

I tried

echo "NAME=" >> $GITHUB_ENV

but it just sets it to empty string, I need it gone so that env doesn't list it any more.

Resources

Raised it GitHub community too: https://github.community/t/remove-environment-variable-from-job/214815 (dead link, not sure where GitHub migrated these...)

Solution

As of today, this is not possible, see https://github.com/actions/runner/issues/1126 ticket that tracks this feature request.

You will have to rely on your own build scripts to add logic for unsetting these variables that might be defined before they are called.