- docs
- FlowFuse User Manuals
- Using FlowFuse
- Getting Started
- FlowFuse Concepts
- Changing the Stack
- DevOps Pipelines
- Environment Variables
- FlowFuse File Nodes
- FlowFuse Persistent Context
- FlowFuse Project Nodes
- High Availability mode
- Instance Settings
- Logging
- Shared Team Library
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- FlowFuse API
- Migrating a Node-RED project to FlowFuse
- Device Agent
- Device Agent
- Hardware Guides
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- Installing FlowFuse
- Overview
- Configuring FlowFuse
- DNS Setup
- Docker install
- Email configuration
- First Run Setup
- FlowFuse File Storage
- Install FlowFuse on Kubernetes
- Local Install
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- Administering FlowFuse
- Administrator configuration for SSO
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# Environment Variables
Environment Variables allow you to manage variables used in your Node-RED flows from the FlowFuse application, you can read more on how to access environment variables inside Node-RED in the Node-RED Docs.
An Environment Variable consists of a name and a value.
# Editing
You can edit the environment variables from the Settings
tab of an instance, select the Environment
option from the side menu.
Changes will only take effect when the Node-RED instance is restarted.
# Template provided variables
The Template may include some predefined environment variables that are automatically applied. The template may lock some of those variables to prevent an individual instance from changing them.
Variables provided by the template cannot be deleted, however if they are editable, their value can be set to blank.
# Node-RED instance variables
You can create additional variables for an individual Node-RED instance clicking the Add variable
button.
You can import variables from a .env
file using the Import .env
button.
You can delete a variable using the trash can icon.
The image below shows an instance with the following environment variables:
policy_item_locked
- added by the template, lockedpolicy_item_editable
- added by the template, editableFF_INSTANCE_ID
- provided by the platform, lockedFF_INSTANCE_NAME
- provided by the platform, lockedFF_PROJECT_ID
- provided by the platform, locked, depreciatedFF_PROJECT_NAME
- provided by the platform, locked, depreciatedINSTANCE_VAR
- added to the instance, editable

# Standard environment variables
Standard environment variables are set for all Node-RED instances running within the platform:
FF_INSTANCE_ID
FF_INSTANCE_NAME
In addition, the following variables are set when running on a device:
FF_DEVICE_ID
FF_DEVICE_NAME
FF_DEVICE_TYPE
FF_SNAPSHOT_ID
FF_SNAPSHOT_NAME
When deploying the same set of flows out to multiple devices, these variables can be used by the flows to identify the specific device being run on.