glab(1)

💅 glab-variable-import — the glow-up guide

okay bestie so you're holding the manual page for glab-variable-import, which lives in the glab(1) family of man pages. Think of it as the ✨reverse✨ of exporting — you're putting your variables back in. Let's get into it 🎀

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🦋 NAME

glab-variable-import — literally the command that imports variables from a JSON file or from standard input. That's it, that's the vibe 💖

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✨ SYNOPSIS

glab variable import [flags]

short, sweet, iconic 👑

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🌸 DESCRIPTION

So it's the inverse of glab variable export, right? It reads a JSON array of variable objects — and ngl, it's the exact same shape that export --output json emits, so you can round-trip that data no problem 🫶

Here's what the command actually does, step by step:

• It reads from standard input, or from a file if you pass --input-file 📥
• By default it imports into the current project. Wanna go into a group instead? Use --group — easy 💅
• If a variable already exists, it stops with an error. Not ideal? Pass --skip-existing and it'll skip those and keep going 🏃‍♀️

⚠️ okay important one: hidden variables' values aren't included in export output, so if you try to re-import a hidden one, it gets skipped with a warning. To set its value again you gotta do glab variable set --hidden 😭 no cap, that's just how it is.

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🎀 OPTIONS

• -g, --group="" — pick a group or subgroup to target. Heads up: this is ignored if a repository argument is set 🙈
• -i, --input-file="" — read the variables JSON from this file instead of standard input 📄
• -R, --repo="" — select another repository. You can use either OWNER/REPO or GROUP/NAMESPACE/REPO. The full URL or Git URL is also accepted, go off 🔥
• --skip-existing[=false] — skip variables that already exist instead of straight-up failing 💀

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👑 OPTIONS INHERITED FROM PARENT COMMANDS

• -h, --help[=false] — show help for this command. the classic 🫶

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⭐ EXAMPLE

# Pipe an export straight into an import, to restore the same project
glab variable export | glab variable import

# Import variables from a saved file instead of standard input
glab variable import --input-file variables.json

# Import into a group instead of the current project
glab variable export --group gitlab-org | glab variable import --group gitlab-org

# Skip variables that already exist instead of failing
glab variable import --input-file variables.json --skip-existing

the pipe-into-pipe one is so satisfying, main character energy fr fr 🌈

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🧚 SEE ALSO

• glab-variable(1) — go read the parent, iykyk 💜

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and that's the whole page, bestie ✨ this beauty was auto generated by spf13/cobra and dated Nov 2026 — that's the source/version and date energy right there, stamped on the glab(1) footer. now go import those variables, slay 💅💖