Environment Variables

Environment variables influence both startup and task execution.

Startup values you will use most often

• GOPHER_ENCRYPTION_KEY
• GOPHER_CUSTOM_REPOSITORY
• GOPHER_DEPLOY_KEY
• GOPHER_CUSTOM_BRANCH
• GOPHER_ENVIRONMENT
• GOPHER_LOGDEST
• GOPHER_LOGLEVEL
• GOPHER_SSH_PORT
• GOPHER_MESSAGE_FORMAT

Task and pipeline environment

Tasks receive a cleaned environment plus pipeline-specific values. Common examples include:

• GOPHER_ENVIRONMENT
• GOPHER_PROTOCOL
• GOPHER_USER
• GOPHER_CHANNEL
• GOPHER_THREAD_ID
• GOPHER_MESSAGE_ID
• GOPHER_PIPE_NAME
• GOPHER_TASK_NAME
• GOPHER_START_PROTOCOL
• GOPHER_START_CHANNEL
• GOPHER_START_THREAD_ID
• GOPHER_START_USER

GOPHER_ENVIRONMENT selects environment-specific robot configuration at startup. It is also exposed to extensions as runtime metadata. The standard v3 authoring convention is to treat GOPHER_ENVIRONMENT=development as a local prove-it mode: plugins that manage host state, cloud resources, firewall rules, or persistent robot memory should validate inputs and report intended actions without making those changes.

For task authors, the practical rule is simple: use GetParameter(...) for important values, because it sees explicit parameters and runtime metadata. Use the process environment for integration with external scripts and tools.