Runtime environment variables specification

[schustmi]

Describe changes

This PR enables defining secrets and environment variables which will be set in the environment when executing steps of a pipeline.

• Precedence: Component < Stack < Pipeline < Step and Environment < Secret
• For most orchestrators, the environment variables (not the secrets) will be set already by the orchestrator, which means they will be set on the container that's executing the step and will be available right away. For some orchestrators however, this was not easily possible and the environment variables get set right before the user step code is being executed.
• The secrets will be added to the environment right before the user step code is being executed.

Pre-requisites

Please ensure you have done the following:

• [ ] I have read the CONTRIBUTING.md document.
• [ ] I have added tests to cover my changes.
• [ ] I have based my new branch on develop and the open PR is targeting develop. If your branch wasn't based on develop read Contribution guide on rebasing branch to develop.
• [ ] IMPORTANT: I made sure that my changes are reflected properly in the following resources:
  • [ ] ZenML Docs
  • [ ] Dashboard: Needs to be communicated to the frontend team.
  • [ ] Templates: Might need adjustments (that are not reflected in the template tests) in case of non-breaking changes and deprecations.
  • [ ] Projects: Depending on the version dependencies, different projects might get affected.

Types of changes

• [ ] Bug fix (non-breaking change which fixes an issue)
• [ ] New feature (non-breaking change which adds functionality)
• [ ] Breaking change (fix or feature that would cause existing functionality to change)
• [ ] Other (add details above)

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✨ Finishing touches

🧪 Generate unit tests

• [ ] Create PR with unit tests
• [ ] Post copyable unit tests in a comment
• [ ] Commit unit tests in branch feature/runtime-environment-variables

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[github-actions[bot]]

ZenML CLI Performance Comparison (Threshold: 1.0s, Timeout: 60s, Slow: 5s)

❌ Failed Commands on Current Branch (feature/runtime-environment-variables)

• zenml stack list: Command failed on run 2 (exit code: 1)
• zenml pipeline list: Command failed on run 1 (exit code: 1)
• zenml model list: Command failed on run 1 (exit code: 1)

🚨 New Failures Introduced

The following commands fail on your branch but worked on the target branch:

• zenml stack list
• zenml pipeline list
• zenml model list

Performance Comparison

Command	develop Time (s)	feature/runtime-environment-variables Time (s)	Difference	Status
zenml --help	1.500663 ± 0.020712	1.507275 ± 0.004583	+0.007s	✓ No significant change
zenml model list	Not tested	Failed	N/A	❌ Broken in current branch
zenml pipeline list	Not tested	Failed	N/A	❌ Broken in current branch
zenml stack --help	1.483964 ± 0.002828	1.491276 ± 0.009950	+0.007s	✓ No significant change
zenml stack list	Not tested	Failed	N/A	❌ Broken in current branch

Summary

• Total commands analyzed: 5
• Commands compared for timing: 2
• Commands improved: 0 (0.0% of compared)
• Commands degraded: 0 (0.0% of compared)
• Commands unchanged: 2 (100.0% of compared)
• Failed commands: 3 (NEW FAILURES INTRODUCED)
• Timed out commands: 0
• Slow commands: 0

Environment Info

• Target branch: Linux 6.11.0-1015-azure
• Current branch: Linux 6.11.0-1015-azure
• Test timestamp: 2025-07-11T08:42:46Z
• Timeout: 60 seconds
• Slow threshold: 5 seconds

[github-actions[bot]]

Documentation Link Check Results

❌ Absolute links check failed There are broken absolute links in the documentation. See workflow logs for details ✅ Relative links check passed _{Last checked: 2025-09-15 07:52:45 UTC}