How can I use environmental variables on AWS Lambda?

Question

I'm writing an application which I want to run as an AWS Lambda function but also adhere to the Twelve-Factor app guidelines. In particular Part III. Config which requires the use of environmental variables for configuration.

However, I cannot find a way to set environmental variables for AWS Lambda instances. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

If it isn't possible to use environmental variables can you please recommend a way to use environmental variables for local development and have them transformed to a valid configuration system that can be accessed using the application code in AWS.

Thanks.

Answer 1

As of November 18, 2016, AWS Lambda supports environment variables.

Environment variables can be specified both using AWS console and AWS CLI. This is how you would create a Lambda with an LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable using AWS CLI:

aws lambda create-function \
  --region us-east-1
  --function-name myTestFunction
  --zip-file fileb://path/package.zip
  --role role-arn
  --environment Variables={LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/bin/test/lib64}
  --handler index.handler
  --runtime nodejs4.3
  --profile default