What is an Airflow Variable?

Variables are key-value pairs stored in Airflow's metadata database. They provide a way to pass configuration or runtime values into DAGs without hardcoding them. Variables can be set via the UI, CLI, environment variables, or the Python API.

from airflow.models import Variable

# Read a variable (with default fallback)
env = Variable.get('environment', default_var='production')

# Serialize JSON
config = Variable.get('pipeline_config', deserialize_json=True)

For sensitive values, prefer Connections or a secrets backend over plain Variables, since Variable values are stored unencrypted by default.

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