Octopus Deploy Documentation

Variable templates

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Variable templates let you specify which variables are required to successfully deploy a project to a tenant, and to provide those variables per tenant.

Each variable template can define the data type, name, label, help text, and default value.

There are two types of variable templates:

  • Library variable set templates are variable values that are common across all tenants but need a unique value per tenant. For example, website names, titles, headers, images, logo, URLs, contact information. These values don't change across projects and environments for a tenant.
  • Project templates are variable values that differ between projects and environments for a tenant. For example, server names or database connection settings.

View a working example on our samples instance.

Library variable set templates

To specify common variables that can be used across multiple tenants, you need to add a Variable template to either an existing or new Library variable set:

  1. Navigate to Library ➜ Variable Sets and click ADD VARIABLE SET.
  2. Give the variable set a name, description, and click SAVE.
  3. Click Variable Templates ➜ ADD TEMPLATE.
  4. Add the details to your template and click SAVE:
Description Example
Name The name of the variable template. This will also be the name given to the resulting variable value you can use in your deployment process. Tenant.Alias
Label The label that will be displayed when prompting for the variable value. Tenant alias
Help text The descriptive help text that will be displayed to provide the user with enough information to accurately provide the value. A shortened, URL friendly, version of the tenant's name.
Default value The value that will be given to the variable if an actual value is not provided. The default value can contain variable binding expressions. https://#{Tenant.Alias}.myapp.com
Control type You can select one of several different data types. This controls the user interface provided to collect the variable value, and determines how the variable value is interpreted. Note the variable values will be stored and interpreted as text. Single-line text box, Multi-line text box, Drop down, Checkbox, Sensitive/password box, Azure Account
Options (Only applies when Data type: Drop down). This defines the list of options available for the user to select from the drop down list. Enter each option on a new line. Use | to separate values and display text. Value1|Display text 1
Value2|Display text 2

To set common variable values for a tenant:

  1. Navigate to the Variables ➜ Common Variables tab in the tenant screen:

  2. Expand each connected environment and provide values for each project template:

If you can't see any variables in the Common Variables tab, ensure you have included the Library variable set in the connected project.

Project templates

Project templates allow you to specify variables that can have different values per tenant/environment combination. A perfect example would be a connection string or a database server. With project templates, you define them at the project level.

To add a project template:

  1. Navigate to the Variables ➜ Project Templates tab in your tenant connected project.

  2. Click ADD TEMPLATE.

  3. Add the details to your template and click ADD:

Then to set the variable values for a tenant:

  1. Navigate to the Variables ➜ Project Variables tab in the tenant screen:

  2. Expand each connected environment and provide values for each project template:

Which variable templates apply to a tenant

When you connect a tenant to a project, variable templates defined by the project itself, or by included library variable sets, will be required by the tenant.

  1. Library variable templates will be collected once - they are considered to be constant for the tenant. Think of these like "custom fields" for your tenants.
  2. Project variable templates will be collected once for each project/environment combination the tenant is connected to. Think of these like database connection settings for the specific tenant/project/environment combination.

By carefully designing your variable templates you can implement complex multi-tenant deployment scenarios.

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