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Using contexts

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Contexts provide a mechanism for securing and sharing environment variables across projects. The environment variables are defined as name/value pairs and are injected at runtime. This document describes creating and using contexts in CircleCI.

If you have existing contexts (or environment variables) and you would like to rename your organization or repository, follow the Rename organizations and repositories guide to make sure you do not lose access to contexts or environment variables in the process.

Overview

Manage contexts on the Organization Settings page of the CircleCI web app, or via the API. You must be an organization member to view, create, or edit contexts.

Create a context and then add environment variables to it. You can use the context key in the workflows section of a project’s .circleci/config.yml file to give any job(s) access to the environment variables associated with the context, as shown in the image below.

Contexts Overview

To use environment variables set within a context, the person running the workflow must be a member of the organization for which the context is set.

Quickstart: Create and use a context

  1. Using CircleCI web app, click on Organization Settings  Contexts on the left side navigation.

    Be aware that organization members can create contexts, but only organization administrators can restrict them using security groups. The one exception to this case is Bitbucket organizations, which require a user to have the create repositories workspace permission, regardless of their other permissions on the workspace or the repositories it contains.

    Contexts
  2. Click Create Context, add a unique name for your context and click Create Context in the modal to finalize. The new context will appear in a list with security set to All members to show that anyone in your organization can access this context at runtime.

  3. You can now click on any context created in your list to add environment variables. Once you have a context selected, click Add Environment Variable to enter the variable name and value. Click Add Environment Variable in the modal to finalize.

  4. To allow a job to access the environment variables stored in a context, add a context key to that job’s entry in the workflows section of the .circleci/config.yml file. For example, in the following example, the run-tests job has access to the environment variables set in the org-global and my-context contexts.

    version: 2.1
    
    workflows:
      my-workflow:
        jobs:
          - run-tests:
              context:
                - org-global
                - my-context
    
    jobs:
      run-tests:
        docker:
          - image: cimg/base:2020.01
        steps:
          - checkout
          - run:
              name: "echo environment variables from org-global context"
              command: echo $MY_ENV_VAR

Contexts and environment variable constraints

When creating contexts and environment variables, note the following:

  • The context name must be:

    • 200 or fewer characters

    • Must contain at least one non-whitespace character

    • Must not contain leading, trailing, or vertical whitespace

  • The environment variable name must be:

    • 300 or fewer characters

    • Begin with an alpha (a-z, A-Z) or _ as the first character, and use alphanumeric or _ for the remaining characters

  • An environment variable value must have 32k or fewer characters.

  • An empty environment variable is considered valid.

  • Each context is limited to 100 environment variables.

  • Each organization is limited to 500 contexts.

Context naming for CircleCI server

For any VCS enterprise installation that includes multiple organizations, the context names across those organizations must be unique. For example, if your GitHub Enterprise installation is named Kiwi and includes two organizations, you cannot add a context called deploy to both organizations. That is, the deploy context name cannot be duplicated in two organizations that exist in the same GitHub Enterprise installation for the Kiwi account. Duplicate contexts within an account will fail with an error.

Combine contexts

You can combine several contexts for a single job by adding them to the context list. Contexts are applied in order, so in the case of overlaps, later contexts override earlier ones. This way, you can scope contexts to be as small and granular as you like.

Restrict a context

CircleCI enables you to restrict contexts at run time in the following ways:

  • Using security groups

  • Using project restrictions

  • Using expression restrictions

Only organization administrators may add restrictions to new or existing contexts.

Security groups are your organization’s VCS teams. After a security group is added to a context, only members of that security group who are also CircleCI users may access the context and use the associated environment variables. The default security group is All members, and enables any member of the organization who uses CircleCI to use the context.

Organization administrators have read/write access to all projects and have unrestricted access to all contexts.

Run workflows with a restricted context

To invoke a job that uses a restricted context, a user must be a member of one of the security groups or projects assigned to the context, or the expressions assigned to the context must be true. If the user running the workflow does not have access to the context or an expression evaluates to false, the workflow will fail with the Unauthorized status.

Approve jobs that use restricted contexts

Adding an approval job to a workflow gives the option to require manual approval of the use of a restricted context. To restrict running of jobs that are downstream from an approval job, add a restricted context to those downstream jobs, as shown in the example below:

version: 2.1

# Jobs declaration for build, test and deploy not displayed

workflows:
  jobs:
    build-test-deploy:
      - build
      - test:
          context: my-restricted-context
          requires:
            - build
      - hold:
          type: approval # presents manual approval button in the UI
          requires:
            - build
      - deploy:
          context: deploy-key-restricted-context
          requires:
            - build
            - hold
            - test

In this example, the jobs test and deploy are restricted, and deploy will only run if the user who approves the hold job is a member of the security group assigned to the context and deploy-key-restricted-context. When the workflow build-test-deploy runs, the jobs build and test will run, then the hold job will run, which will present a manual approval button in the CircleCI application. This approval job may be approved by any member of the project, but the deploy job will fail as unauthorized if the approver is not part of the restricted context security group.

Delete a context

If the context is restricted with a group other than All members, you must be a member of that security group to complete this task. To delete a context, follow the steps below:

  1. Navigate to the Organization Settings  Contexts in the CircleCI web app.

  2. Click the X icon in the row of the context you want to delete. A confirmation dialog box will appear.

  3. Type "DELETE" in the field and then click Delete Context. The context and all associated environment variables will be deleted.

Security group restrictions

Restrict a context to a security group or groups

You must be an organization administrator to complete the following task.

  1. Navigate to Organization Settings  Contexts in the CircleCI web app to see the list of contexts. The default security group is All members, and allows all users in the organization to invoke jobs with that context.

  2. Click the Create Context button if you wish to use a new context, or click the name of an existing context (if using an existing context, you will need to remove the All members security group before adding a new one).

  3. Click the Add Security Group (GitHub users) or Add Project Restriction (GitLab users) button to view the dialog box.

  4. Make your choices in the dialog box and then click the Add Security Group or Add Project Restriction button to finalize. Contexts will now be restricted to the selections you have made.

  5. Click Add Environment Variables to add environment variables to the context if none exist, fill out your desired name and value in the dialogue box, then click the Add Environment Variables button to finalize. Use of the environment variables for this context is now limited to members of the security groups.

  6. Navigate back to Organization Settings  Contexts in the CircleCI app. The security groups appear in the Security column for the context.

Only members of the selected groups may now use the context in their workflows or add or remove environment variables for the context.

Make changes to security group context restrictions

Changes to security group restrictions for contexts might not take effect immediately due to caching. To make sure settings are applied immediately, it is best practice for the organization administrator to refresh permissions once the change has been made. The Refresh Permissions button can be found on the Account Integrations page.

Administrators of CircleCI server installations can find the Refresh Permissions button at <circleci-hostname>/account.

Remove groups from contexts

To make a context available only to the administrators of the organization, you may remove all of the groups associated with a context. All other users will lose access to that context.

Add and remove users from teams and groups

GitHub users: CircleCI syncs GitHub team and LDAP groups every few hours. If a user is added or removed from a GitHub team or LDAP group, it will take up to a few hours to update the CircleCI records and remove access to the context.

Add and remove environment variables from restricted contexts

Addition and deletion of environment variables from a restricted context is limited to members of the context groups.

Project restrictions

CircleCI enables you to restrict secret environment variables by adding project restrictions to contexts. Only organization admins may add or remove project restrictions to a new or existing context. After a project restriction is added to a context, only workflows associated with the specified project(s) will have access to the context and its environment variables.

Organization Admins have read/write access to all projects, and have unrestricted access to all contexts.

Run workflows with a project restricted context

To invoke a workflow that uses a restricted context, the workflow must be part of the project the context is restricted to. If the workflow does not have access to the context, the workflow will fail with the Unauthorized status.

Restrict a context to a project

You must be an organization admin to restrict a context though the method detailed below.

  1. Navigate to the Organization Settings  Contexts page of your organization in the CircleCI web app. The list of contexts will be visible.

  2. Select the name of an existing context, or click the Create Context button if you want to use a new context.

  3. Click the Add Project Restriction button to view the dialog box.

  4. Select the project name to add to the context, and click the Add button. Use of the context is now limited to the specified project. Currently, multiple projects must be added individually.

  5. You should now see a list of the defined project restrictions on the context page.

  6. If you have environment variables, they should appear on the page. If there are none, you can click Add Environment Variables to add them to the context. Then click the Add button to finish. Use of the environment variables for this context is now limited to the specified projects.

Only workflows under the specified projects may now use the context and its environment variables.

Remove project restrictions from contexts

You must be an organization admin to remove projects from contexts though the method detailed below.

  1. Navigate to Organization Settings  Contexts page in the CircleCI web app. The list of contexts will be visible.

  2. Select the name of the existing context for which you would like to modify restrictions.

  3. Click the X button next to the project restriction you would like to remove. The project restriction will be removed for the context.

  4. If there are no longer any project restrictions for the context, the context and its environment variables are now effectively unrestricted.

Expression restrictions

Restrict contexts by setting up expression restrictions. Expression restrictions are rules that pipeline values must match. Using expression restrictions allows you to create arbitrary constraints on the circumstances in which a context is available for use. For example, you may have a context containing credentials that should only be used for deploying your code from your protected main branch:

pipeline.git.branch == "main" and not job.ssh.enabled and not (pipeline.config_source starts-with "api"")`

Tabs and new lines are considered whitespace so can be used to break long lines, but have no other significance. For example, the snippet above could also be written:

pipeline.git.branch == "main"
and not job.ssh.enabled
and not (pipeline.config_source starts-with "api")`

You can set up expression restrictions using the context restriction API, or via the Context page (Organization Settings  Contexts  Expression Restrictions) in the CircleCI web app.

Rules are expressed in a small language that supports equality checks, numeric comparisons, and boolean and, or, and not operators.

Set an expression restriction

Follow these steps to set an expression restriction on a context:

Examples

Allow the context only on the project’s main branch:

pipeline.git.branch == "main"

Allow the context only on the project’s main branch, or branches starting with integration-test:

pipeline.git.branch == "main" or pipeline.git.branch starts-with "integration-test"

Restrict a context to the main branch, disallow use in an SSH rerun, and disallow use with pipelines triggered with unversioned configuration:

pipeline.git.branch == "main" and not job.ssh.enabled and not (pipeline.config_source starts-with "api")

Variables

Pipeline values can be used as variables in an expression restriction. The exception to this is that pipeline.trigger_parameters.* pipeline values cannot be used. Pipeline parameters cannot be used in expression restrictions.

There are also special job-specific variables available to use in expressions, as follows:

nametypedescription

job.ssh.enabled

boolean

true if SSH is enabled for the job, false otherwise

If an expression references a variable that has no value set in the pipeline, the expression will fail closed and prevent use of the context.

Errors

Any errors evaluating an expression will fail closed and prevent use of the context. Errors include the following:

  • Using a variable that does not exist

  • Using a non-numeric value as an operand to the numeric comparison operators

  • Using a non-string value as an operand to the starts-with operator

Operators

The operators you can use are described in the following table. You can also group sub-expressions with parentheses (, ). as in the example above.

Operator typeOperatorsDescription

Logical

and, or

These are short-circuiting boolean operators.

Equality

==, !=

String, numeric, and boolean equality. If the operands are of different types then == will evaluate false, and != will evaluate true.

Equality

starts-with

String prefix equality, "hello world" starts-with "hello" evaluates as true. It is an error to use a non-string type as an operand.

Numeric comparison

>=, >, , <

Numeric comparisons. It is an error to use a non-numeric type as an operand.

Negation

not

Boolean negation.

Note that not has very high precedence and so binds very tightly. Use sub-expressions to apply not to more complex expressions. For example, with foo being true and bar being false:

  • not foo and bar evaluates to false

  • not (foo and bar) evaluates to true

Precedence

The following table shows operator precedence table, from weakest to strongest binding.

OperatorAssociativity

or

left

and

left

== !=

left

starts-with

>= > ⇐ <

left

not !

Literals

Numbers

Numeric literals are whole integers (longs). For example, 1 or 768.

Strings

String literals are enclosed within double-quotes " ". The \ character is used to escape an embedded quote, or to escape an embedded \.

For example, "the quick brown fox", "You can embed \" and \\ characters"

Booleans

The boolean literals are true and false.

Evaluation

An expression is evaluated to produce a single boolean true or false value.

Other than the boolean value false, all values ultimately evaluate as true.

A variable evaluates to the variable’s value. If the variable does not exist then the expression is immediately considered to have evaluated as false. In other words, expression evaluation will fail closed when it encounters an unknown variable.

As an expression is evaluated, the result of an operator is effectively embedded “in place” as the evaluation continues. For example, to evaluate the following:

pipeline.git.branch == "main"
and not job.ssh.enabled
and not (pipeline.config_source starts-with "api")

where the values are:

  • pipeline.git.branch is "main"

  • job.ssh.enabled is false

  • pipeline.config_source is "api"

    1. Variable lookup: replace pipeline.git.branch with its value:

      1. "main" == "main" and not job.ssh.enabled and not (pipeline.config_source starts-with "api")

    2. Evaluate "main" == "main":

      1. true and not job.ssh.enabled and not (pipeline.config_source starts-with "api")

    3. Variable lookup: replace job.ssh.enabled with its value:

      1. true and not false and not (pipeline.config_source starts-with "api")

    4. Evaluate not false:

      1. true and true and not (pipeline.config_source starts-with "api")

    5. Evaluate true and true:

      1. true and not (pipeline.config_source starts-with "api")

    6. Variable lookup: replace pipeline.config_source with its value:

      1. true and not ("api" starts-with "api")

    7. Evaluate ("api" starts-with "api")

      1. true and not true

    8. Evaluate not true:

      1. true and false

    9. Evaluate true and false:

      1. false

    10. The result is false

Context management with the CLI

While contexts can be managed on the CircleCI web application, the CircleCI CLI provides an alternative method for managing the usage of contexts in your projects. With the CLI, you can execute several context-oriented commands.

  • create - Create a new context

  • delete - Delete the named context

  • list - List all contexts

  • remove-secret - Remove an environment variable from the named context

  • show - Show a context

  • store-secret - Store a new environment variable in the named context

The above list are "sub-commands" in the CLI, which would be executed like so:

circleci context create

Many commands will require that you include additional information as indicated by the parameters delimited by < >. For example, after running circleci context create, you will be instructed to provide more information: circleci context create <vcs-type> <org-name> <context-name> [flags].

You will need to properly configure the CLI with a token to enable performing context related actions.

Environment variable usage

Environment variables are used according to a specific precedence order, as follows:

  1. Environment variables declared inside a shell command in a run step, for example FOO=bar make install.

  2. Environment variables declared with the environment key for a run step

  3. Environment variables set with the environment key for a job.

  4. Special CircleCI environment variables defined on the Project values and variables page.

  5. Context environment variables (assuming the user has access to the context).

  6. Project-level environment variables set on the Project Settings page in the web app.

Environment variables declared inside a shell command run step, for example FOO=bar make install, will override environment variables declared with the environment and contexts keys. Environment variables added on the contexts page will take precedence over variables added on the Project Settings page.

Create environment variables with the CLI or API

With the CLI

If this is your first time using the CLI, follow the instructions on CircleCI CLI configuration to set up your CircleCI command line interface.

To create an environment variable using our CLI, perform the following steps:

  1. If you have not already done so, find the right context name that will contain the new environment variable by executing this command: circleci context list <vcs-type> <org-name>

  2. Store a new environment variable under that context by executing this command: circleci context store-secret <vcs-type> <org-name> <context-name> <env-var-name>

Note that the CLI will prompt you to input the secret value, rather than accepting it as an argument. This approach is designed to avoid unintentional secret exposure.

With the API

To create an environment variable using the API, call the Add Environment Variable endpoint with the appropriate request body. For this request, replace the context-id and the env-var-name with the ID for the context and the new environment variable name. The request body should include a value key containing the plain text secret as a string.

Delete environment variables with the CLI or API

With the CLI

To delete an environment variable using the CLI, perform the following steps:

  1. If you have not already done so, find the context name that contains the environment variable you wish to delete by executing this command: circleci context list <vcs-type> <org-name>

  2. Confirm the environment variable exists within that context. To list all variables under that context, execute this command: circleci context show <vcs-type> <org-name> <context-name>

  3. Delete the environment variable by executing this command: circleci context remove-secret <vcs-type> <org-name> <context-name> <env-var-name>

With the API

To delete an environment variable using the API, call the Delete environment variable endpoint.

For this request, replace the context-id and the env-var-name with the ID for the context and the environment variable name that should be updated.

Rotate environment variables with the CLI or API

Rotation refers to the process of updating a secret’s value without deleting it or changing its name.

Because environment variables can be shared, passed around between employees and teams, and exposed inadvertently, it is always good practice to periodically rotate secrets. Many organizations automate this process, for example, running a script when an employee leaves the company, or when a secret may have been compromised.

Context environment variables can be rotated using CircleCI’s CLI, or by accessing the API.

With the CLI

If this is your first time using the CLI, follow the instructions on CircleCI CLI configuration to set up your CircleCI command line interface.

To rotate an environment variable using the CLI, perform the following steps:

  1. If you have not already done so, find the context name that contains the variable you would like to rotate by executing this command: circleci context list <vcs-type> <org-name>

  2. Find the environment variable to rotate within that context by executing this command: circleci context show <vcs-type> <org-name> <context-name>

  3. Update the existing environment variable under that context. Execute this command and replace the env-var-name with the name of the environment variable from Step 2: circleci context store-secret <vcs-type> <org-name> <context-name> <env-var-name>

Note that the CLI will prompt you to input the secret value, rather than accepting it as an argument. This approach is designed to avoid unintentional secret exposure.

With the API

To rotate an environment variable from the API, call the Update environment variable endpoint with the appropriate request body. For this request, replace the context-id and the env-var-name with the ID for the context and the environment variable name that should be updated. The request body should include a value key containing the plain text secret as a string.

Secrets masking

Environment variables and contexts may hold project secrets or keys that perform crucial functions for your applications. Secrets masking provides added security within CircleCI by obscuring environment variables in the job output when echo or print is used.

Secrets masking is applied to environment variables set within Project Settings or Contexts in the web app.

The value of the environment variable or context will not be masked in the job output if:

  • the value of the environment variable is less than 4 characters

  • the value of the environment variable is equal to one of true, True, false, or False


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