---
title: "Public Environment Variables For Your Tests Using cypress-expose Plugin"
url: https://daily.dev/posts/public-environment-variables-for-your-tests-using-cypress-expose-plugin-kjidoxub0
source_url: https://glebbahmutov.com/blog/cypress-expose-plugin
type: article
source: "Gleb Bahmutov"
published: 2026-05-31T07:53:21.930Z
updated: 2026-05-31T09:07:33.422Z
tags: ["testing", "cypress"]
reading_time: 2
upvotes: 0
comments: 0
language: en
---

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# Public Environment Variables For Your Tests Using cypress-expose Plugin

**[Gleb Bahmutov](https://daily.dev/sources/glebbahmutov)** · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments

## Summary

Cypress v16 changed how environment variables work, making CYPRESS_-prefixed variables private by default and inaccessible outside test blocks. To fill the gap for passing public (non-secret) configuration values to specs, the author created the cypress-expose plugin. It reads any CYPRESS_EXPOSE_... process environment variable and exposes it via Cypress.expose in camel-case form, keeping secrets private via cy.env while making non-sensitive config values accessible anywhere in spec files. Setup requires adding the plugin to the setupNodeEvents callback in cypress.config.js.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://glebbahmutov.com/blog/cypress-expose-plugin>

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Tags: [#testing](https://daily.dev/tags/testing), [#cypress](https://daily.dev/tags/cypress)

[View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/public-environment-variables-for-your-tests-using-cypress-expose-plugin-kjidoxub0)