Saving GITHUB_ENV Variable in GitHub Actions

Question

I'm trying to save a variable name in one step, using date. But, in a later step, it seems to be undefined (or empty?). What am I missing here?

jobs:
 # Create release branch for the week
 branch:
 runs-on: ubuntu-latest
 steps:
 - uses: actions/checkout@v2
 - name: Format the date of next Tuesday
 id: tuesday
 run: echo "abbr=$(date -v+tuesday +'%y%m%d')" >> $GITHUB_ENV
 - name: Create a branch with next tuesday's date
 uses: peterjgrainger/[email protected]
 env:
 GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
 with:
 branch: release/${{ steps.tuesday.outputs.abbr }}

Error:

refs/heads/release/ is not a valid ref name.

• jonrsharpe: If you want to output a value from a step, shouldn't it look more like e.g. github.com/textbook/salary-stats/blob/…? That's what's shown in docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/actions/reference/… and it works for me.
• smac89: Does this answer your question? Get output of a specific step in github actions

Answer 1

I slightly changed your create branch step but your slo should work if you solve issue with date formatting. enter image description here

I changed it and it works.

jobs:
 # Create release branch for the week
 branch:
 runs-on: ubuntu-latest
 steps:
 - uses: actions/checkout@v2
 - name: Format the date of next Tuesday
 id: tuesday
 run: echo "abbr=$(date '+tuesday%y%m%d')" >> $GITHUB_ENV
 - name: Read exported variable
 run: |
 echo "$abbr"
 echo "${{ env.abbr }}"
 - name: Create a branch with next tuesday's date
 uses: peterjgrainger/[email protected]
 env:
 GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
 with:
 branch: release/${{ env.abbr }}

Here a logs from running this:

enter image description here

• smac89: I don't see how the step is getting abbr seeing as you never created an environment variable called abbr. Also you are using the env context inside run which doesn't work
• Krzysztof Madej: Are you sure what you are saying. I attached logs which proves different things than you are saying.
• Krzysztof Madej: From what i recall ` run: echo "abbr=$(date '+tuesday%y%m%d')" >> $GITHUB_ENV` it created env variable.
• smac89: Ahh ok that makes sense now I wasn't aware of the GITHUB_ENV variable
• Krzysztof Madej: What can I say more than logs 🙂 both statements were printed, so it appears to be working