Variables that can be defined through the gitlab UI are CI/CD variables. Any variables that can be changed/created during job execution are other variables that are not related to CI/CD variables, they exist only within one job and can only be passed to subsequent tasks via dotenv. https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/variables/#:~:text=These%20variables%20cannot%20be%20used%20as%20CI/CD%20variables%20to%20configure%20a%20pipeline