Variable Groups in Azure DevOps

3 min readNov 23, 2023

Variable Groups in Azure DevOps are a feature that allows you to define a collection of variables that can be used across multiple pipelines and environments within your DevOps projects. Variable Groups help centralize and manage variables, making it easier to maintain consistency and security in your CI/CD pipelines. Here’s how Variable Groups work in Azure DevOps:

Creation of Variable Groups:

Variable Groups are created in the Azure DevOps project settings. You can define the variables you want to include in the group and set their values. These variables can be secrets or regular variables.

Scope and Permissions:

Variable Groups can be scoped to specific environments, stages, or pipelines within your project. You can also define permissions to control who can view or edit the variable group.

Secure Variables:

One of the significant advantages of Variable Groups is that they support secure variables. Secure variables are encrypted and can only be accessed during runtime. This is useful for storing sensitive information like API keys, passwords, and certificates.

Reusability:

Once created, Variable Groups can be reused across multiple pipelines. This promotes consistency and reduces the need to duplicate variables in different pipelines.

Maintenance:

If you need to update a variable used in multiple pipelines, you can make the change in the Variable Group. This change will be automatically reflected in all pipelines that use the group, simplifying maintenance.

Variable Linking:

In your pipeline, you can link a Variable Group, making its variables available for use. This linking process is straightforward and allows you to reference variables from the group in your pipeline tasks.

Secrets Management:

Secret variables within Variable Groups are managed securely. They are encrypted and can be accessed during pipeline execution but are not displayed in plain text in the pipeline configuration.

Versioning:

Azure DevOps allows you to version Variable Groups, which can be useful if you need to maintain multiple versions of your variables for different pipelines or stages.

Environment-Specific Values:

Variable Groups can contain environment-specific values, enabling you to configure pipelines for different environments (e.g., development, testing, production) using the same pipeline definition with different Variable Groups.

Integration:

Variable Groups can be integrated with Azure Key Vault to securely store and manage secrets, providing an extra layer of security for sensitive information.