Android gradle build System.getEnv("RELEASE_PASSWORD") returns null

Question

I'm having an issues where System.getenv() is returning null for the environment variable. My password is stored in the RELEASE_PASSWORD environment variable. When I do:

$ echo $RELEASE_PASSWORD

it prints out the correct value, so I know the variable is set.

I was originally setting the signingConfig signingConfigs.release in the release buildType and everything was working fine, but I need different signing configs for different product flavors. If I hardcode the password, it works just like it is suppose to. Things only get wonky when I try to read the password from an environment variable.

Is it some sort of scope issue?

This is what I currently have in my build.gradle.

android {    ...    signingConfigs {     release {       storeFile ...;       keyAlias ...;       storePassword System.getenv("RELEASE_PASSWORD");       keyPassword System.getenv("RELEASE_PASSWORD");     }      unsigned {       keyAlias "";       storePassword "";       keyPassword "";     }   }    buildTypes {     debug {       versionNameSuffix = "-DEBUG"     }      release {     }   }    flavorGroups "storeFront"    productFlavors {     def googleVariable = signingConfigs.release     def amazonVariable = signingConfigs.unsigned      google {         flavorGroup "storeFront"         signingConfig googleVariable     }      amazon {         flavorGroup "storeFront"         signingConfig amazonVariable     }   } } 

Answer 1

You can run Android Studio from the command-line to get the environment variables passed into the IDE. In Mac OS you can run it from a terminal by running /Applications/Android\ Studio.app/Contents/MacOS/studio