Variables and configuration, done right
Configuration is where a lot of deployments quietly go wrong, usually because a value that worked in one environment silently didn't carry over to the next.
This session covers project variables, library variable sets, scoping rules, and config transforms, with the goal of setting something up once and trusting it actually works everywhere it needs to, rather than re-checking it by hand every time. We'll work through real examples of scoping a variable so it behaves differently across Dev, Test, and Prod without needing separate copies of your process.
If you've ever had a deployment succeed in one environment and quietly break in another because of a missed setting, this is the session that explains why, and how to stop it happening again.
Speaker
John Bristowe
John Bristowe helps engineering teams deliver reliably as a developer advocate at Octopus Deploy. He leads community engagement, creates educational content, and appears regularly on Octopus streams and webinars. Before Octopus, John spent years in developer relations at Microsoft and Telerik/Progress, speaking at industry events and building programs for web and .NET developers. He contributes to Octopus open source, including the Octopus CLI, the Terraform provider for Octopus, and several GitHub Actions that connect build pipelines to deployment workflows. John is based in Robina, Australia, and has been active in the developer community for over two decades.
Additional resources
Variable recommendations
Best-practice guidance on structuring and scoping variables in Octopus.
Octolint best practices
Use Octolint to catch unused, duplicated, and badly scoped variables.
Getting started with variables
The basics of project variables, scoping, and how Octopus uses them.