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ENV key validation rules to strict #724
Description
Which component(s) is affected?
Kubero UI
Describe the bug
Hi, the validation rules for environment variable keys are to strict.
They don't allow hypens: -
From the UI:
Only letters, numbers and underscores allowed. Must start with letter or underscore
But hyphens are often used in environment variables.
For example from the Docker Registry image:
REGISTRY_HTTP_HEADERS_Access-Control-Allow-Origin='[http://registry-ui.example.com]'
To set various headers.
It would be great to allow this.
Steps to reproduce
- Go to the UI and create a new app
- Set a environment variable, who's key contains a
- - Validation error and unable to create app
- Uploading a .env also does not work
Expected behavior
Allow environment variable keys to contain -
Screenshots
No response
Additional information
No response
Debug information
No response
Activity
LucidDan commentedon Jan 28, 2026
Personally, I'd never use '-' in a env name, since it would behave unexpectedly in
${}syntax, eg${FOO-bash}would look forFOOand if unset return the string 'bash', rather than looking forFOO-bash. So this sounded wrong to me, but on doing some research to satisfy my own curiosity, it's allowed;Kubernetes allows any character except '=': https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/inject-data-application/define-environment-variable-container/
POSIX is slightly stricter and has some recommendations, but still mostly allows anything except '=': https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9799919799/basedefs/V1_chap08.html
I was just satisfying my own curiosity looking this up, but hopefully the links I found are useful context.