Environment Variables

Configuration variables

Variable	Default	Description
`PIPE_MAX_PARALLEL`	`0` (unlimited)	Maximum number of parallel commands/sub-runs per step
`PIPE_LOG_ROTATE`	`10`	Number of log files to keep per pipeline (0 = keep all)
`PIPE_STATE_ROTATE`	`10`	Number of state files to keep per pipeline (0 = keep all)
`PIPEHUB_URL`	`https://hub.getpipe.dev`	Hub API base URL
`PIPE_EXPERIMENTAL_UNSAFE_VARS`	unset	Disable the vars contract — allow override sources to introduce keys not declared in `vars` (see Variables)
`PIPE_EXPERIMENTAL_PRESERVE_INTERACTIVE_OUTPUT`	unset	Keep interactive step session output visible after the step finishes (by default, output is cleared and only the status line remains)

Step output variables

Each single-command step’s stdout is captured and exposed as an environment variable:

PIPE_<STEP_ID>

Hyphens in the step ID become underscores, and the name is uppercased.

Step ID	Environment Variable
`get-version`	`PIPE_GET_VERSION`
`build`	`PIPE_BUILD`
`fetch-data`	`PIPE_FETCH_DATA`

For named sub-runs, each sub-run produces its own variable:

PIPE_<STEP_ID>_<SUBRUN_ID>

Step ID	Sub-run ID	Environment Variable
`fetch`	`api-version`	`PIPE_FETCH_API_VERSION`
`build`	`linux`	`PIPE_BUILD_LINUX`

User-defined variables

Variables declared in the vars section are exposed as:

PIPE_VAR_<KEY>

Var Key	Environment Variable
`name`	`PIPE_VAR_NAME`
`registry`	`PIPE_VAR_REGISTRY`
`deploy-target`	`PIPE_VAR_DEPLOY_TARGET`

Only keys declared in the vars block are accepted. Override sources that provide keys not declared in vars are ignored with a warning. See Variables & Templating for the full contract.

Loading variables from a .env file

When a pipeline specifies dot_file, variables are loaded from the given .env file. Keys use plain NAME=value format and are matched against the vars block:

registry=docker.io/myorg
env=production

.env file values override YAML defaults but are overridden by PIPE_VAR_* environment variables and CLI arguments. Keys not declared in vars are ignored with a warning.

Overriding variables via environment

You can override a pipeline’s declared variable by setting the corresponding PIPE_VAR_* environment variable before running:

export PIPE_VAR_REGISTRY=ghcr.io/myorg
pipe deploy

This takes precedence over the YAML default and .env file values, but is overridden by CLI arguments. PIPE_VAR_* variables that don’t match any declared var generate a warning.

See Variables & Templating for the full precedence chain.