﻿---
title: Capture environment variables
description: You can configure an Elastic Agent policy to capture up to five environment variables (env vars). To set up environment variable capture for an Elastic...
url: https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/5613/solutions/security/cloud/capture-environment-variables
products:
  - Elastic Cloud Serverless
  - Elastic Security
applies_to:
  - Serverless Security projects: Generally available
  - Elastic Stack: Generally available
---

# Capture environment variables
You can configure an Elastic Agent policy to capture up to five environment variables (`env vars`).
<note>
  - Env var names must be no more than 63 characters, and env var values must be no more than 1023 characters. Values outside these limits are silently ignored.
  - Env var names are case sensitive in Linux.
</note>

To set up environment variable capture for an Elastic Agent policy:
1. Find **Policies** in the navigation menu or use the [global search field](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/5613/explore-analyze/find-and-organize/find-apps-and-objects).
2. Select an Elastic Agent policy.
3. Click **Show advanced settings**.
4. Scroll down or search for `linux.advanced.capture_env_vars` or `mac.advanced.capture_env_vars`.
5. Enter the names of env vars you want to capture, separated by commas. For example: `PATH,USER`
6. Click **Save**.


## Find captured environment variables

Captured environment variables are associated with process events, and appear in each event’s `process.env_vars` field.
To view environment variables in the **Events** table:
1. Click the **Events** tab on the **Hosts**, **Network**, or **Users** pages, then click **Fields** in the Events table.
2. Search for the `process.env_vars` field, select it, and click **Close**. A new column appears containing captured environment variable data.

![The Events table with the "process.env_vars" column highlighted](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/5613/solutions/images/security-env-var-capture-detail.png)