Resolving Predefined Agent Variables in Runtime Expressions - azure-devops

Question

I have the following scenario, it is simplified for the sake of brevity, but outlines my problem.
I have a 2 Job pipeline.
BreakMatrix Job: A job that runs on an AdminPool and outputs 2 variables with the following names ENV1 and ENV2. The names are important because each of them matches the name of an Environment running in a separate MachinePool VM deployment pool.
Upgrade Job: A deployment job that depends on the BreakMatrix job and that runs on a VM MachinePool, with a tag that will select ENV1 and ENV2 environments.
I am trying to pass in one of the variables to each of the corresponding Environments:
- job: BreakMatrix
pool: AdminPool
steps:
- checkout: none
- powershell: |
$result1 = #{"Hostname" = "Env1Value"}
$result2 = #{"Hostname" = "Env2Value"}
Write-Host "##vso[task.setvariable variable=ENV1;isOutput=true;]$result1"
Write-Host "##vso[task.setvariable variable=ENV2;isOutput=true;]$result2"
name: outputter
- deployment: Upgrade
dependsOn: BreakMatrix
variables:
agentName: $(Environment.ResourceName)
agentName2: $(Agent.Name)
formatted: $[ format('outputter.{0}', variables['agentName']) ]
result1: $[ dependencies.BreakMatrix.outputs[format('outputter.{0}', variables['agentName'])] ]
result2: $[ dependencies.BreakMatrix.outputs[format('outputter.{0}', variables['agentName2'])] ]
result3: $[ dependencies.BreakMatrix.outputs[format('outputter.{0}', variables['Agent.Name'])] ]
hardcode: $[ dependencies.BreakMatrix.outputs['outputter.ENV2'] ]
json: $[ convertToJson(dependencies.BreakMatrix.outputs) ]
environment:
name: MachinePool
resourceType: VirtualMachine
tags: deploy-dynamic
strategy:
rolling:
preDeploy:
steps:
- powershell: |
echo 'Predeploy'
echo "agentName: $(agentName)"
echo "agentName2: $(agentName2)"
echo "env: $(Environment.ResourceName)"
echo "formatted: $(formatted)"
echo "harcode: $(harcode)"
echo "result1: $(result1)"
echo "result2: $(result2)"
echo "result3: $(result3)"
echo "json: $(json)"
deploy:
steps:
- powershell: |
echo 'Deploy'
Output for ENV2 pre-deploy step:
Predeploy
agentName: ENV2
agentName2: ENV2
env: ENV2
formatted: outputter.ENV2
hardcode: {
Hostname:Env2Value}
result1:
result2:
result3:
json: {
outputter.ENV2:
\"Hostname\":\"Env2Value\"
}
If i try to use a predefined variable in a dependency expression they don't seem to properly resolve, but if i just simply map them to a variable / format them they work.
Note: The environment names are actually dynamically calculated before these jobs run so I cannot use parameters or static/compile time variables.
Any suggestions on how to pass in only the relevant variable to each of the environments ?

Answer 1

I got confirmation on the developer community that this is not possible.
Relevant part:
But I am afraid that the requirement couldn’t be achieved.
The reason is that the dependencies.xx.outputs expression can’t read
the variable(variables['Agent.Name']) and format expression value
defined in the YAML pipeline.
It now only supports hard-coding the name of the variable to get the
corresponding job variable value.