When packaging Maven in a continuous integration (CI) pipeline and specifying environment variables, these variables are typically used during the build process to configure settings, such as database connections, API keys, or other sensitive information. However, when the build artifacts are uploaded to an artifact repository, these environment variables do not take effect because they are not part of the artifact itself.
Environment variables are dynamic and are resolved at runtime by the CI tool or the environment where the build is executed. Once the build completes and the artifacts are generated, these variables are no longer present in the artifact files. As a result, when you upload these artifacts to a repository, they do not contain the environment-specific configurations.
For example, if you set an environment variable DB_URL in your CI pipeline to connect to a development database during the build, this variable is used to configure your application's database settings at build time. However, when the JAR or WAR file is uploaded to the artifact repository, the DB_URL variable is not included in the file. Therefore, when you deploy this artifact to a different environment, such as production, the application will not know the correct database URL unless it is reconfigured in that environment.
To address this issue, you can use configuration management tools or practices such as:
In the context of cloud services, platforms like Tencent Cloud offer services like Tencent Cloud Secret Manager which can be used to securely manage and retrieve secrets during the deployment process, ensuring that sensitive information is not hard-coded into your artifacts.