crewship env

Overview

Environment variables let you configure your crew without changing code. Use them for:

API keys (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.)
External service credentials
Configuration that varies between environments

Commands

Set Variables

crewship env set KEY=value

Set multiple variables at once:

crewship env set OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-... ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...

Options

Option	Description
`--name`, `-n`	Deployment name (for multi-deployment configs)
`--project <name>`	Target project (defaults to current directory)

List Variables

crewship env list

Output:

Environment variables for my-crew:

  OPENAI_API_KEY     sk-...xxxx (set 2 days ago)
  ANTHROPIC_API_KEY  sk-ant-...xxxx (set 2 days ago)
  DEBUG_MODE         false (set 5 days ago)

3 variables

Values are masked for security. Only the first and last few characters are shown.

Get a Variable

crewship env get OPENAI_API_KEY

Shows the masked value:

OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...xxxx

Remove Variables

crewship env rm VARIABLE_NAME

Remove multiple:

crewship env rm VAR1 VAR2 VAR3

Examples

Setting API keys

# OpenAI
crewship env set OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-proj-...

# Anthropic
crewship env set ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...

# Serper (for web search)
crewship env set SERPER_API_KEY=...

Configuration variables

crewship env set LOG_LEVEL=debug
crewship env set MAX_RETRIES=3

Multi-deployment projects

Target a specific named deployment:

crewship env set --name research-agent OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
crewship env list --name writer-agent

Using in your crew

Variables are automatically available as environment variables:

import os

openai_key = os.environ["OPENAI_API_KEY"]
log_level = os.environ.get("LOG_LEVEL", "info")

Or with CrewAI’s built-in support:

from crewai import Agent, LLM

# CrewAI automatically uses OPENAI_API_KEY
agent = Agent(
    role="Researcher",
    llm=LLM(model="gpt-4o")
)

Loading from .env

Load variables from a .env file:

crewship env set --file .env

Never commit .env files to version control. Add .env to your .gitignore.

Variable Scope

Environment variables are scoped to a project, not a deployment. This means:

All deployments in a project share the same variables
Updating a variable affects all future runs
No redeploy is needed after changing variables

Encryption

All environment variables are:

Encrypted at rest using AES-256
Transmitted over TLS
Never logged or exposed in build output

Reserved Variables

These variables are set by Crewship and cannot be overridden:

Variable	Description
`CREWSHIP_RUN_ID`	Current run ID
`CREWSHIP_DEPLOYMENT_ID`	Current deployment ID
`CREWSHIP_PROJECT`	Project name

Best Practices

Use descriptive names

Name variables clearly: OPENAI_API_KEY not KEY1

Separate environments

Use different projects for staging and production

Rotate secrets regularly

Update API keys periodically for security

Don't hardcode fallbacks

Fail fast if a required variable is missing instead of using default values for secrets

Configuration

Project configuration

Deploy

Deploy your crew

Getting Started

CLI Reference

Configuration

Guides

Overview

Commands

Set Variables

Options

List Variables

Get a Variable

Remove Variables

Examples

Setting API keys

Configuration variables

Multi-deployment projects

Using in your crew

Loading from .env

Variable Scope

Encryption

Reserved Variables

Best Practices

Configuration

Deploy

​Overview

​Commands

​Set Variables

​Options

​List Variables

​Get a Variable

​Remove Variables

​Examples

​Setting API keys

​Configuration variables

​Multi-deployment projects

​Using in your crew

​Loading from .env

​Variable Scope

​Encryption

​Reserved Variables

​Best Practices

​Related

Configuration

Deploy

Overview

Commands

Set Variables

Options

List Variables

Get a Variable

Remove Variables

Examples

Setting API keys

Configuration variables

Multi-deployment projects

Using in your crew

Loading from .env

Variable Scope

Encryption

Reserved Variables

Best Practices

Related