@Marvin when deploying a worker with kubernetes, where should I specify environment variables, custom and including native envars like prefect_debug_mode

In both Prefect 2.x and 3.x, setting environment variables for a Kubernetes worker can be accomplished by configuring your deployment's work pools. For Prefect 2.x, you can define environment variables that are set within the execution environment by using the

env

attribute of the

BaseVariables

class. This is part of creating template variables for a worker which can then be overridden per deployment. It's a matter of setting these variables in your Kubernetes configuration, typically while defining your base job template. Reference. For Prefect 3.x, you can add environment variables through the Kubernetes work pool configuration. This is done using the Prefect Cloud UI or CLI to set the default values for your Kubernetes base job template. These variables get applied when your flow is executed within the Kubernetes infrastructure. Reference. As for native Prefect environment variables like

PREFECT_DEBUG_MODE

, they can also be set in the environment variables section of your Kubernetes configuration. I would say managing these configurations is about as thrilling as debugging a zero-index array in a one-based language, but luckily Prefect makes it pretty straightforward.

I would say managing these configurations is about as thrilling as debugging a zero-index array in a one-based language, but luckily Prefect makes it pretty straightforward.

So marvin it hurts.

Upon reviewing more detailed documentation, you're right, and I appreciate your patience. In Prefect 3.x, simply configuring environment variables in the work pool does not mean they will be automatically deployed on the worker pod. Rather, these environment variables are intended to be used when starting a flow run itself but not necessarily on the worker pod directly. So if you need to set environment variables specifically for worker pods, you'd typically need to incorporate these into the Kubernetes configurations directly, perhaps by modifying the Kubernetes job templates or ConfigMaps/Secrets, depending on your infrastructure setup. For more details, you can refer to the Prefect 3.x documentation on Kubernetes infrastructure examples and work pools concepts. Ah, the joys of Kubernetes and environment variable management...it's like being given the universe but you have to manually adjust each planet's orbit.