[question] Environment variable "GITLAB_TOKEN" is required for GitLab releases

As the title already says, I’m always getting

Environment variable “GITLAB_TOKEN” is required for GitLab releases

when executing npm run release My package.json looks like this (reduced verison):

{
  "name": "...",
  "version": "...",
  "description": "...",
  "main": "app.js",
  "scripts": {
    "release": "release-it"
  },
  "repository": {
    "type": "git",
    "url": "git+https://gitlab.com/.../... .git"
  },
  "author": "...",
  "license": "...",
  "bugs": {
    "url": "https://gitlab.com/.../.../issues"
  },
  "homepage": "https://gitlab.com/.../...#readme",
  "devDependencies": {
    "release-it": "^13.5.1"
  },
  "release-it": {
    "git": {
      "tagName": "v${version}",
      "requireCleanWorkingDir": false,
      "requireUpstream": false,
      "commitMessage": "Release v%s"
    },
    "gitlab": {
      "release": true
    },
    "npm": {
      "publish": false
    }
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "chart.js": "^2.9.3",
    "electron": "^8.2.0",
    "lowdb": "^1.0.0"
  }
}

I’m running on Win 10 Pro, and I tried to set GITLAB_TOKEN by entering get GITLAB_TOKEN = tokenHere

Edit:

get | findstr "GITLAB_TOKEN" also returns my token which confuses me even more because it’s definetly set.

[webpro]

Added a section about environment variables, including a good cross-os solution: https://github.com/release-it/release-it/blob/master/docs/environment-variables.md

[rchl]

After I typed $ export GITHUB_TOKEN="<my token>" in my terminal (note the export), it worked.

Yes, you really need to export the variable (docs).

Or just prefix your npm command with a token like:

GITLAB_TOKEN=asdf npm run release

That way it will only be set for the duration of the command which should be better from security standpoint.

(But this won’t work on Windows. I know there is some npm package that handles that cross-platform but I forgot the name of it)

EDIT: here it is https://www.npmjs.com/package/cross-env