🚀 Generate a .env File from an Azure DevOps Variable Group

Easily automate the creation of a .env file from an Azure DevOps Variable Group with this custom Azure Pipelines task.

📚 Overview

This custom task simplifies the management of environment variables by generating a standard .env file directly from your Azure DevOps Variable Groups, ensuring consistency and reducing manual errors. Both regular and secret variables defined in the Variable Group will be included in the generated .env file.

🚀 Usage in Azure Pipelines

Make sure the Variable Group is imported in your YAML using the variables instruction before running this task. For example:

variables:
  - group: "YOUR_VARIABLE_GROUP_NAME"

Then, add the task to your YAML pipeline as follows:

- task: create-env-file@1
  inputs:
    variableGroupName: "YOUR_VARIABLE_GROUP_NAME"
    outputPath: ".env"

📦 Example Variable Group

Suppose you have a Variable Group named prueba-env-file with the following variables:

We will use the next YAML pipeline to reference this variable group and create envfile

After running the pipeline, if you try to print the variables in the Azure Pipeline execution environment, the variables will appear like this:

Instead, the .env file will display all the values exactly as shown in the following image:

⚙️ How It Works

The task executes the following steps:

1. Reads Inputs: Accepts the Variable Group name and the desired output path for the .env file.
2. Authenticates: Uses the system OAuth token to securely access the Azure DevOps REST API.
3. Fetches Variable Group: Retrieves the specified Variable Group and its variables.
4. Generates .env File: Writes the variables to a .env file in the specified location.
5. Reports Outcome: Marks the task as succeeded or failed based on the operation result.

✅ Requirements

• The pipeline must have "Allow scripts to access the OAuth token" enabled.
• The Variable Group must be linked to the pipeline and contain the required variables.

📝 Notes

• Secret variables are included in the generated .env.
• Ensure the Variable Group does not expose confidential information if the .env file will be publicly accessible.
• Only plain text variables are supported.
• For more information, refer to the Azure DevOps documentation.