[Proposal] Make node name accessible as environment variable

Core Development
1

As we can see in the following posts, I think it makes sense to be able to refer to the node name because each node has a name attribute and many nodes have meaningful names on the flow.

So, I would like to propose the following extension to environment variable.

Proposal

  • References to _NODE_NAME_ environment variable are replaced with the value of the node's name property.
2

I wonder if there is a set of standard properties that could be exposed in this way.

  • name
  • id
  • path

The only bit I'm less sure on is the format of the env var. We tend to prefix properties with _ if they are more internal and not necessarily meant for general use.

I would suggest NODE_NAME NODE_ID and NODE_PATH ?

Having written that out, NODE_PATH is a well-known environment variable already - not that I'd expect a NR flow to ever want to make use of it. But it could cause confusion.

1 Like
3

id is an additional candidate as environment variable.
I used _ as prefix because I was afraid of collision with the existing variable name, but it is okay to omit _ according to the policy.

Regarding path, as it is still in the design discussion stage, I think it is better to discuss it together with that design. From the NODE_PATH environment variable you pointed out, I come to a little concerns that the name path may be mistaken as the directory path where the node is installed.

4

Good point about the path name.

As you know (but for other readers' benefit) it is the name of an internal property used to identify exactly where a node exists in a flow (such as inside nested subflows). And we have a separate discussion over exposing that more formally as a node property.

5

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