Environment Variables - Prime Intellect Docs

Environment variables are plain-text key-value pairs injected into your environment at runtime. They are suited for non-sensitive configuration — things like model names, difficulty levels, dataset paths, or feature flags. For sensitive values such as API keys, use Secrets instead.

Managing Variables

Variables are managed per-environment under the Secrets tab.

Open your environment in the Environments Hub
Go to the Secrets tab and select Variables
Click Add Variable
Set a Name, Value, and optional description

Variables can be edited or deleted at any time by anyone with write access to the environment.

Managing via CLI

prime env var list owner/my-env                                     # list all variables
prime env var create owner/my-env --name MY_VAR --value hello       # create a variable
prime env var update <var-id> owner/my-env --value new-value        # update a variable
prime env var delete <var-id> owner/my-env                          # delete a variable

Naming Rules

Variable names follow env-var conventions:

Must start with an uppercase letter
Can contain uppercase letters, digits, and underscores only
Example: MODEL_NAME, DIFFICULTY, MAX_EXAMPLES

Where Variables Are Available

Variables are injected automatically for all hosted services:

Environment Actions
Hosted Evaluations
Hosted Training

Variables vs Secrets

	Environment Variables	Secrets
Stored as	Plain text	Encrypted
Visible after creation	Yes	No
Use for	Non-sensitive config	API keys, credentials
Scope	Per-environment	Per-environment or global

When both a variable and a secret share the same name, the secret takes priority. See Secrets for the full precedence rules.

Conflict Rules

A variable name cannot conflict with an existing linked secret on the same environment. If you try to create a variable with a name already used by a linked secret, the platform will reject it. Rename or unlink the secret first.

​Managing Variables

​Managing via CLI

​Naming Rules

​Where Variables Are Available

​Variables vs Secrets

​Conflict Rules