Environments & variables

Environment variables keep configuration out of your flow definitions. The same checkout-smoke flow can run against staging or production by changing which environment you pick at launch — not by editing nodes.

Variables live in three layers:

• Organization defaults — the base set, shared by every flow in the organization.
• Named overlays — sets like staging or prod that override matching organization defaults when selected at launch.
• Flow-level variables — defined on a single flow.

Resolution at launch

When you launch a flow, you can pass an environment key — the name of an overlay. Values then resolve into the execution’s inputs in this order, later layers overriding earlier ones:

1. Organization defaults
2. The named overlay you selected (overrides matching default keys)
3. The flow’s own variables (override both organization layers)

Inside requests, reference any resolved variable with {{double_brace}} syntax — {{BASE_URL}}, {{API_TOKEN}}.

# Run against the staging overlay
echopoint flows run <flow-id> --environment staging

Values are limited to 1000 characters each.

Managing organization variables

# Base layer (organization defaults)
echopoint org env set --var BASE_URL=https://api.example.com
echopoint org env get
echopoint org env unset BASE_URL

# Named overlays via -e
echopoint org env set -e staging --var BASE_URL=https://staging.example.com
echopoint org env get -e staging

# List or delete overlays
echopoint org env environments list
echopoint org env environments delete staging

The Environment page in the app manages the same layers: organization defaults, named overrides, and runtime configuration safety.

Managing flow variables

echopoint flows env set <flow-id> --var API_TOKEN=tok_test_123
echopoint flows env get <flow-id>
echopoint flows env unset <flow-id> API_TOKEN
echopoint flows env delete <flow-id>

Secret boundary — not an encrypted vault

Echopoint environments are not an encrypted secret store. The guarantee is a delivery boundary: resolved values are handed only to the launched execution and are never written to logs. Keep long-lived, high-privilege credentials in your secret manager and inject scoped, short-lived values — a test API token, a staging URL — as environment variables.

Next steps

• Building flows — using {{variables}} in requests
• Dynamic variables — generated test data vs configuration
• Runners — how resolved values reach each runner type
• CLI — full org env and flows env reference