Octopus Variables and its limitation where you have to use a step name in the variable name

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1

I have been building this project of mine and I keep getting bit in the butt with what I see as a great limitation.
I have a step that sets a variable for Octopus to see in subsequent steps. I then have a subsequent step that uses that variable which includes its step name in the variable when I set it in the subsequent step.
Whenever I change a step’s name, either one of two things happen:

  1. Either I’m brilliant, or I magically remember that a subsequent step uses that step name and I remember which step that uses that variable and I fix it. (Actual occurrences of brilliance are disappointingly low.)
  2. Or, what happens more often is that I forget that a subsequent step uses a variable with the step name of a previous step. My project fails an execution, and I have to hunt to find what happened.
    I really need to remove the dependency to this problem. I know you can give me workarounds like putting variables in NuGet files and whatnot, but honestly, I want to structure my code and project the way I want to, and I don’t think I’m being too eccentric in wanting this.
    Can someone please address it? I’d suggest giving a step a unique ID or something that allow me to move steps around, and rename steps.
    Thanks for your consideration!
    Keith
2

Hi Keith,

Thank you for contacting us! This is currently something we are aware of, however the quick fix of creating another alias for variables will double the variables required to be called, this will create a noticeable decrease in performance for many customers.

We do however have a UV suggestion for just this issue! Sadly there are only 3 votes.


Please go through and vote/comment on this suggestion and see if we can get some community support.

Regards,
Daniel

3

I had an idea. What if you were to take the window where we give you our PowerShell Code, and add a sort of intelli-sense to the window. When a word starts to follow some sort of variable convention you could, in that window, make the attachment necessary right there in the code. OR, do a sort of compilation of sorts to the PowerShell.

Would that work?

I lent my vote to the problem.

Keith

4

Hi Keith,

Thank you for voting on the UV suggestion!

In regards to your request here, feel free to add it to the UV suggestion.

Thanks,
Daniel