hashicorp/nomad · error

error building environment variables: %v

Error message

error building environment variables: %v

What it means

runDriver failed building the task's environment variables via the env builder (interpolation of job meta, node meta, vault/consul tokens, or template artifacts), so the driver cannot be started with a complete environment.

Source

Thrown at client/allocrunner/taskrunner/task_runner.go:925

	}
}

func (tr *TaskRunner) assignCgroup(taskConfig *drivers.TaskConfig) {
	reserveCores := len(tr.taskResources.Cpu.ReservedCores) > 0
	p := cgroupslib.LinuxResourcesPath(taskConfig.AllocID, taskConfig.Name, reserveCores)
	taskConfig.Resources.LinuxResources.CpusetCgroupPath = p
}

// runDriver runs the driver and waits for it to exit
// runDriver emits an appropriate task event on success/failure
func (tr *TaskRunner) runDriver() error {
	taskConfig := tr.buildTaskConfig()
	tr.assignCgroup(taskConfig)

	// Build hcl context variables
	vars, errs, err := tr.envBuilder.Build().AllValues()
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("error building environment variables: %v", err)
	}

	// Handle per-key errors
	if len(errs) > 0 {
		keys := make([]string, 0, len(errs))
		for k, err := range errs {
			keys = append(keys, k)

			if tr.logger.IsTrace() {
				// Verbosely log every diagnostic for debugging
				tr.logger.Trace("error building environment variables", "key", k, "error", err)
			}
		}

		tr.logger.Warn("some environment variables not available for rendering", "keys", strings.Join(keys, ", "))
	}

	val, diag, diagErrs := hclutils.ParseHclInterface(tr.task.Config, tr.taskSchema, vars)

View on GitHub (pinned to 482b49bf1a)

Solutions

1. Check logged per-key errors to find which variable failed to interpolate
2. Verify referenced node attributes, meta keys, and secrets exist
3. Review template/vault blocks that feed the task env
4. Fix the job spec references and resubmit

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at client/allocrunner/taskrunner/task_runner.go:925 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/nomad@482b49bf1a (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/bdb055e01b8d8466. Report an issue: GitHub.