Vars passed from the CLI don't seem to work

[Thiht]

I want to override a task variable from the CLI following this documentation: https://taskfile.dev/usage/#variables and I can't make it work

I'm assuming I'm doing something wrong but I can't figure it out so I guess it's a bug?

Here's an example:

version: "3"
tasks:
  example:
    vars:
      FILE: "*.yml"
    cmds:
      - "echo '{{.FILE}}'"

$ task example
task: [example] echo '*.yml'
*.yml

$ task example FILE=foo
task: [example] echo '*.yml'
*.yml

$ FILE=foo task example
task: [example] echo '*.yml'
*.yml

• Task version: v3.38.0 (h1:O7kgA6BfwktXHPrheByQO46p3teKtRuq1EpGnFxNzbo=)
• Operating system: macOS Sonoma 14.6.1
• Experiments enabled: no

[vmaerten]

Hello
You need to use the default function (https://taskfile.dev/next/reference/templating/#default-functions) as follow :

version: "3"
tasks:
  example:
    vars:
      FILE: '{{.FILE | default "*.yml"}}'
    cmds:
      - "echo '{{.FILE}}'"

[Thiht]

Thanks, this solves my issue!

May I ask why what I did doesn't work, and if there are plans to make it work? Using a default is very non-intuitive. I couldn't find the solution anywhere online, and there's zero chance I would have thought of using default.

At the very least it would be great if you could update the docs I linked on variables because in its current state it's just not working.

[vmaerten]

Actually it's written in the docs :

More important first, the first one being Variables declared in the task definition (which is your case), so it won't look for Environment variables (last one)

There is no plan to make it work because it would be a breaking changes (at least not before the next major which is not planned at all).

But you're right, we need to show this use case in the doc. I'll update the doc with an example using default