github workflow using environment variable - github

Question

I have a self hosted Github Action runner on a Windows server, my goal is to migrate from Jenkins to GitHub's workflow. I have a very hard to time understand how to use the environment variables for some reason.
I have a folder on my self hosted server, where I want to place some generic build scripts, which is created in Powershell.
So my main.yml look like this
# This is a basic workflow to help you get started with Actions
name: Build integration
# Controls when the workflow will run
on:
# Triggers the workflow on push or pull request events but only for the "develop" branch
push:
branches: ["*"]
pull_request:
branches: ["*"]
# Allows you to run this workflow manually from the Actions tab
workflow_dispatch:
# A workflow run is made up of one or more jobs that can run sequentially or in parallel
jobs:
# This workflow contains a single job called "build"
continuous-integration:
# The type of runner that the job will run on
runs-on: [self-hosted, .net]
# Steps represent a sequence of tasks that will be executed as part of the job
steps:
# Checks-out your repository under $GITHUB_WORKSPACE, so your job can access it
- name: Checkout code
uses: actions/checkout#v3
# get environment
- name: Get system environments
uses: FranzDiebold/github-env-vars-action#v2
# show environment
- name: Show all enronment variables
run: SET
shell: cmd
# read meta file
- name: read project meta file
run: |
.\$BUILD_SCRIPTS_PATH}\Powershell\meta.ps1 -MetaFilePath ProjectMeta.json
shell: powershell
I have tried all kinds of variants to get the environment variable BUILD_SCRIPTS_PATH out.
.\${env.BUILD_SCRIPTS_PATH}\Powershell\meta.ps1 -MetaFilePath ProjectMeta.json
.\${{BUILD_SCRIPTS_PATH}}\Powershell\meta.ps1 -MetaFilePath ProjectMeta.json
.\$env.BUILD_SCRIPTS_PATH\Powershell\meta.ps1 -MetaFilePath ProjectMeta.json
.\$BUILD_SCRIPTS_PATH\Powershell\meta.ps1 -MetaFilePath ProjectMeta.json
I keep getting this error
+ ${BUILD_SCRIPTS_PATH}\Powershell\meta.ps1 -MetaFilePath ProjectMe ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unexpected token '\Powershell\meta.ps1' in expression or statement.
+ CategoryInfo : ParserError: (:) [], ParseException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : UnexpectedToken
a minor part of the output from the SET command
Run SET
ALLUSERSPROFILE=C:\ProgramData
APPDATA=C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Roaming
BUILD_SCRIPTS_PATH=E:\github\BuildScripts
ChocolateyInstall=C:\ProgramData\chocolatey
I have looked into the documentation from GitHub GitHub Documentation but I don't really understand what i am doing wrong. I would really appreciate is someone could explain to me what i am doing wrong.

Answer 1

You can read more about using environment variables in GitHub actions here.
From what you've posted it doesn't seem like you're providing the BUILD_SCRIPTS_PATH to the workflow's environment.
You can add it like this:
# read meta file
- name: read project meta file
run: |
.\$BUILD_SCRIPTS_PATH\Powershell\meta.ps1 -MetaFilePath ProjectMeta.json
shell: powershell
env:
BUILD_SCRIPTS_PATH: ${{ secrets:build_scripts_path}}
Then just make sure to add the build_scripts_path as a GitHub secret.