Environment variables not overriding vars

[boosh]

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not already reported by someone else.

Please describe the bug you're facing. Consider pasting example
Taskfiles showing how to reproduce the problem.

• Task version: v3.23.0
• Operating System: Mac Ventura 13.2.1
• Bash: GNU bash, version 5.2.15(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin22.1.0)

I don't think this is a dupe of #843 or #993. I just upgraded to 3.23.0 after seeing this issue in 3.19.0. See the following, the first fails to set the variable from the environment, the second works:

version: '3'

vars:
  VARS:

tasks:
  hello:
    cmds:
      - echo "using vars {{.VARS}}"

$ VARS=vars/accounts/example/dev/ task hello
task: [hello] echo "using vars file "
using vars file 

$ task hello VARS=vars/accounts/example/dev/ 
task: [hello] echo "using vars file vars/accounts/example/dev/"
using vars file vars/accounts/example/dev/

[deepbrook]

I don't think this is a bug?

Vars are not environment variables within task. It's true that you can delegate them, and the way to do this is indeed misleading - but you have to do so explicitly:

vars:
  VARS: "{{  .VARS }}"

tasks:
  hello:
    cmds:
      - echo "using vars {{.VARS}}"

Or, since it's a env variable already, this should work as well:

tasks:
  hello:
    cmds:
      - echo "using vars $VARS"

From what I understand, vars is a dict of values available to templating using go's templating engine. Environment variables given via CLI are merged into the command's shell automatically and are available via direct env ref ($var_name), but not automatically in go templating.

So, if you set vars: {VARS: } you're essentially making VARS value null.

It's especially confusing because at the vars level, I believe env variables are available:

vars:
  VARS: "{{  .VARS }}"

It would probably be less confusing if it were scoped under {{ .env.VARS }} or similar.