potential bug: Variables in included files override ones in parent file

[pbitty]

When I include a Taskfile that has env and vars that overlap the parent taskfile, the parent file's variables get overwritten at parent tasks' scope.

I am running task with the following files:

Taskfile.yml

version: '3'

includes:
  child: ./Taskfile.child.yml

env:
  ENV_VAR: root-file

vars:
  VAR: root-file

tasks:
  default: |
    echo ENV_VAR is $ENV_VAR
    echo VAR is {{ .VAR }}

Taskfile.child.yml

version: '3'

env:
  ENV_VAR: child-file

vars:
  VAR: child-file

# No tasks needed for this example.

Expected output:

ENV_VAR is root-file
VAR is root-file

Actual output:

ENV_VAR is child-file
VAR is child-file

I believe the code responsible is here:

task/taskfile/ast/taskfile.go

Lines 56 to 57 in 114d5e1

	t1.Vars.Merge(t2.Vars, include)
	t1.Env.Merge(t2.Env, include)

, where merge the included file's variables into the parent.

Is this intentional behaviour? I would expect that the parent could provide defaults for the child, or override via include.*.vars, but it is surprising to have the child influence values on the parent.

If this is indeed a bug, I'd be happy to contribute a fix.

• Task version: HEAD@114d5e1
• Operating system: MacOS 14.4.1
• Experiments enabled: None

[vmaerten]

Hello!

Variables are not scoped and we can't change it right now because it would be a breaking changes. We had a discussion about it here

TLDR: users should avoid has much as possible to use conflicting variable names for now because they are not scoped