Last year, we released a new and improved environment variable experience which includes:
- Stronger encryption for stored secrets
- Scopes, so you can limit where environment variable data is available
- Contextual values, so you can set a variable’s value based on the deploy context or active branch
As of November 2, 2022, this has been generally available to existing teams on a per-site, opt-in basis. New teams get this experience by default.
Our intent is to move all remaining teams to this new experience, so your projects benefit from the improved flexibility and security of the environment variables revamp. We will begin migrating accounts to the new environment variables system starting no sooner than February 20, 2023 beginning with customers on Starter or Pro Plans. Customers on Enterprise plans can expect a migration in early March.
What will happen when my team is migrated?
For sites not already migrated over, we will copy your environment variables to the new system. You will be able to access your variables from Site Settings > Environment Variables, the Netlify CLI, and Environment Variables API endpoints.
If you had not previously migrated any sites over, we will also copy over any shared environment variables, which can be accessed at Team Settings > Environment Variables. For all teams, Team Settings > Sites > Shared environment variables will no longer be available.
We will not delete data from the previous system until we are confident that sites have been migrated over successfully.
Your team audit log will show an entry indicating that all your sites and any shared environment variables have been migrated.
Thanks to Netlify’s atomic, immutable deploys, your current production deploy will not be impacted in any way.
What do I need to do?
Generally, not much!
| Your use case | What to do |
|---|---|
| Your team was created on or after November 2, 2022 | You’re already on the new experience and there is nothing you need to do. |
| You have some sites migrated already, and your team uses shared environment variables. | Make sure all shared env vars you want to keep are listed at Team Settings > Environment Variables. |
| You use Netlify Sites API endpoints to modify environment variables. | You will need to switch to the new Environment Variables endpoints to manage environment variables going forward. |
| Otherwise… | We don’t expect any changes on your part to be necessary, and we hope you enjoy the new experience! |
What if I notice something has gone wrong?
Please contact support or create a post on the free support forums. We will be happy to investigate with you!
Generally, we do not anticipate site breakage or data loss. The most likely issue is a need to move environment variable management from Site API endpoints to Environment Variables endpoints, if you were previously using Netlify Sites API.
Can I defer a migration for my team?
If you’re a customer on an Enterprise plan, you may work directly with your dedicated account manager to plan a deferred migration. This could be useful for teams with particularly complex setups requiring additional time or coordination.
For customers on Starter or Pro plans, we encourage you to move all items to the new experience as soon as possible. Your projects will benefit from improved flexibility and security. And, any new functionality improvements will also be made on top of the new system in the future. Please reach out if you have any questions!
Looking forward
We can’t wait to share the new environment variable experience with all our customers, starting February 20, 2023! If you’d like to take a peek at what’s available, or migrate any sites early, check out the earlier announcement blog post.
Thank you to all those who tried out the beta or shared your experiences. Your open and honest feedback is always appreciated!