Variables

Variables in official documentation

Intro to Variables

Here is the Taskfile to follow along.

Open the working directory in terminal (I suggest you to use ./working_dir)

As you may already notice, tasks can make use of variables. For example,
let's create an initial taskfile in our working directory: task --init.

Open the Taskfile.yaml in a text editor, and you will see:

# https://taskfile.dev

version: '3'

vars:
  GREETING: Hello, World!

tasks:
  default:
    cmds:
      - echo "{{.GREETING}}"
    silent: true

Global Variables

vars section is indeed for variables, and one variable is declared there.
GREETING is the name of the variable, Hello, World! is its value.

This is a global variable that is declared on the level of a whole taskfile.

Variables are useful in cases when a bunch of tasks use the same value. You can
assign this value to a variable so when you'll need to edit it you'll have to
edit it just once.

Let's write a task that uses the same global variable that we already have:

  greet-global:
    desc: run this task to print the global GREETING variable declared above
    cmds:
      - echo {{.GREETING}}

Call this task: task greet-global. Does it print out Hello, World!?

Fine.

Local Variables

Meanwhile each task can have its own variables. Let's create an example:

  greet-local:
    desc: run this task to print the local GREETING variable declared in task
    vars:
      GREETING: Hi! This string is the value of a local variable
    cmds:
      - echo {{.GREETING}}

Run this task: task greet-local. Notice that the local variable overrides the
global one with the same name.

By the way:

When you call a task from another task, the caller's variable overrides the
callie's variable with the same name.

Now let's see how taskfiles deal with environmental variables.

Next chapter