ENV variable with - not being loaded by EDC when passed via helm

[AasthaRai17]

There are env vars such as
EDC_IAM_TRUSTED-ISSUER_ABC_ID
EDC_IAM_TRUSTED-ISSUER_ABC_SUPPORTEDTYPES
EDC_VAULT_HASHICORP_ALLOW-FALLBACK

which contain a - in them are not being loaded by EDC

Observed Behavior

Even after setting up those env vars via helm chart I get below logs-
DEBUG 2026-01-20T10:28:57.823037185 Config value: no setting found for 'edc.vault.hashicorp.allow-fallback', falling back to default value 'true'
DEBUG 2026-01-20T10:28:57.825788306 [Hashicorp Vault Health] Vault health check initialization complete
DEBUG 2026-01-20T10:28:57.826183401 Initialized Hashicorp Vault Health
WARNING 2026-01-20T10:28:57.826654104 The list of trusted issuers is empty

Workaround

I do not want to use a properties file so for me Trusted Issuers can be added via an extension by using my own env vars with the list.

[wolf4ood]

Hi @AasthaRai17

thanks for raising this, That should work, do you have a reproducible test?
It's working on different setup
Thanks

[AasthaRai17]

There is no specific test step to reproduce this. I believe the problem is with one of the functions which convert the env vars from EDC__ to edc.. where hyphens are not being handled correctly and hence the issue occurs. Whereas if i use the property file the env vars/property fields are already in expected format that is edc.. it works fine in that case.

[ndr-brt]

EDC doesn't really care, if your shell allows environment variables with dashes, they will be parsed correctly.

Generally speaking we should avoid to use dashes in setting keys, it's not a good practice.

Would you like to open an issue? we could deprecate the current settings with dashes and introduce new ones without them

[AasthaRai17]

Yes, lets consider it. I appreciate your effort :)
Thanks!

[AasthaRai17]

i faced same issue with another env var in federated catalog - edc.dsp.well-known-path.enabled.

[AasthaRai17]

kubernetes/kubernetes#16863
The problem is POSIX & Shell Rules (Main Reason)
Most shells (bash, sh, zsh) follow POSIX variable naming rules:
[A-Za-z_][A-Za-z0-9_]*
That means:
Letters, numbers, underscores allowed
Dashes (-) are NOT allowed
So this fails in a shell:
export MY-VAR=hello

kubectl exec -n federator deployment/catalog -it -- sh
# export EDC_DSP_WELL-KNOWN-PATH_ENABLED=true
sh: 1: export: EDC_DSP_WELL-KNOWN-PATH_ENABLED: bad variable name

[arnoweiss]

Have you checked that the env vars are present in the kubernetes pod?

[AasthaRai17]

yes, and today i faced same issue with another env var in federated catalog - edc.dsp.well-known-path.enabled. So I believe something is missing or misconfiguration.

[wolf4ood]

@AasthaRai17
did you already raise the issue about this?

Thanks

[AasthaRai17]

Thanks for the quick reply. here is the issue i raised just now #5515

[wolf4ood]

cool tnx