Placeholders

Placeholders let you inject environment-specific values into your Qlik app files at build time — without editing the files themselves.

Define key-value pairs once in .qopsconfig. QOps substitutes every occurrence of @{KEY} with the corresponding value when reading app files during QOps-Build, QOps-Pull, QOps-Release, and QOps-Reload.

Defining Placeholders in .qopsconfig

YAML format (recommended)

Placeholders:
  ENV: production
  DB_SERVER: my-db-server.example.com
  TEAM: BI-Platform

Important: Placeholders must be a mapping (key: value), not a list. Using - key: value syntax will cause a parse error.

JSON format

{
  "Placeholders": {
    "ENV": "production",
    "DB_SERVER": "my-db-server.example.com",
    "TEAM": "BI-Platform"
  }
}

Using Placeholders in App Files

Use the syntax @{KEY} anywhere in your app files:

Script.qvs

LOAD * FROM [lib://datafiles/@{ENV}_sales.qvd] (qvd);

Variables/MyVar.yaml

Name: vEnvironment
Definition: "@{ENV}"

App.yaml, Dimensions, Measures, Sheets, MasterObjects, GenericObjects, Stories, Bookmarks, Selections — all support @{KEY} substitution.

Overriding at Runtime

Pass -Placeholders on any supported cmdlet to override or extend config values. Cmdlet values take precedence over .qopsconfig.

# Override ENV for this run only
QOps-Build -Placeholders @{ ENV = "staging"; DB_SERVER = "staging-db" }

QOps-Release -Filter "MyApp" -Placeholders @{ ENV = "production" }

QOps-Pull  -Placeholders @{ ENV = "dev" }

QOps-Reload -Placeholders @{ ENV = "staging" }

Supported Cmdlets

Cmdlet	Supports `-Placeholders`
`QOps-Build`	Yes
`QOps-Pull`	Yes
`QOps-Release`	Yes
`QOps-Reload`	Yes

Common Use Cases

Multi-environment pipelines

# .qopsconfig (dev)
Placeholders:
  ENV: dev
  API_URL: https://dev-api.company.com

# .qopsconfig (prod)
Placeholders:
  ENV: prod
  API_URL: https://api.company.com

Dynamic data connection paths

// Script.qvs
LOAD * FROM [@{DATA_ROOT}/@{YEAR}/sales.qvd] (qvd);

QOps-Build -Placeholders @{ DATA_ROOT = "lib://Archive"; YEAR = "2025" }

Notes

Placeholder keys are case-sensitive
If a key is not found in the Placeholders dictionary, the @{KEY} token is left as-is (no error)
Placeholders are applied at read time, before QOps parses the YAML/JSON structure — so they work in any string value, including nested ones