Pass variable set in PowerShell task to another task (YAML) - azure-devops

Question

I have a yaml file with following tasks:
parameters:
steps:
- task: AzurePowerShell#4
displayName: 'script'
inputs:
azureSubscription:
ScriptPath:
ScriptArguments:
azurePowerShellVersion: LatestVersion
- task: AzureResourceGroupDeployment#2
displayName: 'deployment'
inputs:
azureSubscription:
resourceGroupName:
location:
overrideParameters: '-abc $(var1) -def $(var2)'
deploymentMode: 'Incremental'
In the Powershell Script, I'm setting 2 variables as follows:
$ABC = 1
$DEF = 2
Write-Host "##vso[task.setvariable variable=var1;isOutput=true]$ABC"
Write-Host "##vso[task.setvariable variable=var2;isOutput=true]$DEF"
On trying to use these variables in the 2nd task (in overrideParameters section), I see the following error:
[error]InvalidContentLink: Unable to download deployment content from 'xxxx$(var1)'
[error]InvalidContentLink: Unable to download deployment content from 'xxxx$(var2)'
Am I setting variables in PowerShell script wrong?

Answer 1

You can try to add a reference name to the first task. For example:
- task: AzurePowerShell#4
displayName: 'script'
inputs:
azureSubscription:
ScriptPath:
ScriptArguments:
azurePowerShellVersion: LatestVersion
name: test
Then in the second task, get the variable value in the form of $(test.var1).
This is because in definition editor, downstream tasks won't get variable name intellisense for output variables that were published by an ad-hoc script. You can refer to this document for details.
In addition, here is a blog with some examples on how to pass variables in Azure Pipelines YAML tasks.