sdods doctor says "demo-shop/staging vars — 0 var(s) resolved" and passes. Is that right?

Asked 30 Jun 20261,420 views2 answers

7votes

Green tick, zero variables. The staging environment definitely has a ${...} in it, so I expected at least one.

Is the check finding nothing, or finding nothing to complain about?

asked by Zeynep Arslan64 · 30 Jun 2026

2 answers

11votes✓
Accepted answer
Finding nothing to complain about — and the count is the number it had to check, not the number in the file.
That row verifies that every ${VAR} that has no default resolves from the .env files or the shell. A reference with a default cannot fail, so it is not collected. The demo staging file uses
yaml
```
vars:
  standardPassword: "${DEMO_SHOP_PASSWORD:-secret_sauce}"
```
which is defaulted, so the count is zero and the check is trivially satisfied.
Add a bearer token as a bare ${API_TOKEN} and the number goes to one — or the check fails and names the variable, which is the case the row exists for.
answered by Reeta Nandalmaintainer41,280 · 30 Jun 2026
4votes
Consequence: a defaulted reference is invisible to doctor, so a missing value silently falls back instead of being reported. Fine for a public demo target, not fine for a credential — which is a decent argument for not putting defaults on anything real.
answered by Tanvi Bhatt126 · 2 Jul 2026

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