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Document all azd environment variables

Open Copilot opened this issue 2 months ago • 0 comments

Consolidates and documents all environment variables used by azd for community visibility. Previously, only 11 variables were documented.

Changes

Expanded documentation (cli/azd/docs/environment-variables.md):

  • Added 45+ undocumented environment variables across 12 categories
  • Organized by purpose: Configuration, Authentication, Azure Resources, Platform, CI/CD Integration, Extensions, Debug/Development
  • Added usage context and deprecation notes where applicable

Key additions:

  • Authentication: AZURE_DEV_COLLECT_TELEMETRY, AZURE_DEV_USER_AGENT (standardization candidates)
  • Azure Resources: AZURE_ENV_NAME, AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_ID, AZURE_RESOURCE_GROUP, container/AKS endpoints
  • CI/CD: GitHub Actions, Azure Pipelines OIDC (SYSTEM_ACCESSTOKEN, AZURESUBSCRIPTION_*), Terraform auth (ARM_*)
  • Output Control: NO_COLOR, FORCE_COLOR, COLUMNS, BROWSER
  • Extensions: AZD_EXT_DEBUG, AZD_EXT_TIMEOUT, AZD_SERVER, AZD_ACCESS_TOKEN
  • Debug: 9 AZD_DEBUG_* variables for troubleshooting

Standardization notes:

  • ✅ Tool paths already follow AZD_<tool>_TOOL_PATH pattern
  • ⚠️ AZURE_DEV_COLLECT_TELEMETRY and AZURE_DEV_USER_AGENT remain as outliers (use AZURE_DEV_ vs standard AZD_ prefix)

Test-only variables (AZD_TEST_*, AZD_FUNC_TEST) intentionally excluded.

Original prompt

This section details on the original issue you should resolve

<issue_title>consolidate and document all azd environment variables </issue_title> <issue_description>Let's consolidate and document all existing azd environment variables for our community and users.

This is primarily an "under-the-covers" documentation, preferably we should have a pristine copy of this in the codebase repository. We can also expand our footprint to our learn docs.

The final stretch goal: we should be able to surface in-terminal help, an idea is presented in Azure/azure-dev#4319

Tasks:

  • [x] Document existing
  • [ ] Discuss and standardize outliers:
    • [x] AZD_<tool>_TOOL_PATH
    • [ ] AZURE_DEV_COLLECT_TELEMETRY -> AZD_COLLECT_TELEMETRY
    • [ ] AZURE_DEV_USER_AGENT -> AZD_USER_AGENT</issue_description>

<agent_instructions>Are there additional env variables we'd want to document. check the code and please advise. </agent_instructions>

Comments on the Issue (you are @copilot in this section)

@weikanglim Existing issue: Azure/azure-dev#589 @rajeshkamal5050 @weikanglim Moving this to backlog. Please pull this into sprints when addressing remaining items. @kristenwomack @alexwolfmsft - will you review this? @alexwolfmsft Some common environment variables are captured in this document: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/developer/azure-developer-cli/manage-environment-variables?tabs=bash#standard-environment-variables

Do we need to add more? What would that list look like?</comment_new>

  • Fixes Azure/azure-dev#4320

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Copilot avatar Dec 17 '25 21:12 Copilot