Use scoped variables for connection strings, service settings, feature flags, and deployment-specific values without hard-coding them in CI. Scope each value as broadly as a workspace or as narrowly as a single step, and let steps hand computed values to each other through output variables.

Scoped from workspace down to a single step Encrypted secret handling Nested variable references Output variables shared between steps
01

Scope a value to exactly where it applies

Define a variable once and attach one or more values, each scoped to where it should apply. When several scopes match the same variable, the most specific value wins: step beats target, target beats tag, tag beats environment, environment beats project, project beats workspace.

  • Workspace — shared defaults across every project
  • Project — values owned by a single project
  • Environment — Dev, Staging, and Production differ
  • Target & tag — per-machine or per-role values
  • Step — a value that applies to one deployment step
02

Scope a value to a single Project Step

A variable value can carry a step filter, pinning it to one or more steps in the deployment process. A step-scoped value is the most specific scope there is — when that step runs, its value overrides the environment-, target-, or tag-scoped value for the same variable. Use it when one step needs a different connection string, path, or feature flag than the rest of the process, without inventing a new variable name.

03

Output variables: pass values between steps

Steps don't only consume variables — they can produce them. A script step records an output value that later steps in the same deployment read back by reference. Use it to hand a generated URL, a resource ID, or a computed version number downstream, with no database or temp file in between. Values can be scoped to the machine that produced them or shared globally across the deployment.

# PowerShell — record an output value
Set-JawsOutputValue -Name "DeployedUrl" -Value $url

# Python — the same, shared across the whole deployment
import jaws
jaws.set_output_value("DeployedUrl", url, scope="Global")

# A later step reads it back by reference
#{OUTPUT.Step.Deploy Web App.Global.DeployedUrl}