How to set an environment variable from a Gradle build?

I'm trying to set an environment variable from my Gradle build. I'm on MacOS X (El Capitan). The command is "gradle test".

I'm trying this in my build.gradle:

task setenv(type: Exec) {
    commandLine "export", "SOME_TEST_VAR=aaa"
}
test.dependsOn setenv

and the build fails:

> Execution failed for task ':myproject:setenv'. > > A problem occurred starting process 'command 'export''

I also tried this:

test.doFirst {
    ProcessBuilder pb1 = new ProcessBuilder("export SOME_TEST_VAR=some test value")
    pb1.start();
}

The build succeeds. However, if I check the environment variable in my JUnit test it fails:

assertTrue(System.getenv().containsKey("SOME_TEST_VAR"));

Is there any way to set an environment variable from a Gradle build (in the build.gradle file)?

Update:

I've tested it in isolation: the values do get passed and my test task receives everything, be it a systemProperty, environment variables or jvmArgs.

So, it's nothing wrong with Gradle itself here.

The problem arises when I'm trying it on the real project. It uses Spring for dependency injection. I may be wrong but it looks like the Spring framework purges those values somewhere.

That sub-project is currently being frozen and I can't check my guess in detail right now.

For a test task, you can use the environment property like this:

test {
  environment "VAR", "val"
}

you can also use the environment property in an exec task

task dropDatabase(type: Exec) {
    environment "VAR", "val"
    commandLine "doit"
}

Note that with this method the environment variables are set only during the task.

You can also "prepend" the environment variable setting by using 'environment' command:

run.doFirst { environment 'SPARK_LOCAL_IP', 'localhost' }

If you have global environment variables defined outside Gradle,

test {
    environment "ENV_VAR",  System.getenv('ENV_VAR')
    useJUnitPlatform()
}

This looks like an old thread but there is one more variant of how we can set an environment variable in the Gradle task.

task runSomeRandomTask(type: NpmTask, dependsOn: [npmInstall]) {
    environment = [ 'NODE_ENV': 'development', BASE_URL: '3000' ]
    args = ['run']
}

The above Gradle task integrates the Gradle and npm tasks.

This way we can pass multiple environment variables. Hope this helps to broaden the understanding which the answers above have already provided. Cheers!!

In case you're using Gradle Kotlin syntax, you also can do:

tasks.taskName {
    environment(mapOf("A" to 1, "B" to "C"))
}

So for test task this would be:

tasks.test {
    environment(mapOf("SOME_TEST_VAR" to "aaa"))
}

This one is working for me for settings environment variable for the test plugin

test {
	systemProperties = [
        'catalina.home': 'c:/test'
    ]
	println "Starting Tests"
	beforeTest { descriptor ->
       logger.lifecycle("Running test: " + descriptor)                
	}    
}

If you are using an IDE, go to run, edit configurations, gradle, select gradle task and update the environment variables. See the picture below.

Alternatively, if you are executing gradle commands using terminal, just type 'export KEY=VALUE', and your job is done.

Please try this one option:

 task RunTest(type: Test) {
         systemProperty "spring.profiles.active", System.getProperty("DEV")
         include 'com/db/project/Test1.class'
     }

Environment variables are needed to customise the execution of the gradle tasks. Below is the working code in gradle 7.3.2, where need to pass the host and port to the cucumber steps.

    task runFunctionalTests() {
    dependsOn assemble, testClasses
    doLast {
        javaexec {
            mainClass = "io.cucumber.core.cli.Main"
            classpath = configurations.cucumberRuntime + sourceSets.main.output + sourceSets.test.output
            args = [
                    '--glue', 'com.examples.functional.steps',
               'src/test/java/com/examples/tests/functional/features'
            ]
            environment 'PROTOCOL', 'http'
            environment "HOST", "myserver"
            environment 'PORT', '8080'
        }
    }
}

And then you access the environment variable in the cucumber steps as below

String host = System.getenv("HOST");
int port = Integer.parseInt(System.getenv("PORT"));
String host = System.getenv("PROTOCOL");

In my project I have Gradle task for integration test in sub-module:

task intTest(type: Test) {
...
system.properties System.properties 
...

this is the main point to inject all your system params into test environment. So, now you can run gradle like this to pass param with ABC value and use its value by ${param} in your code

gradle :some-service:intTest -Dparam=ABC