Setting environment variables in Google Colab

I'm trying to use the Kaggle CLI API, and in order to do that, instead of using kaggle.json for authentication, I'm using environment variables to set the credentials.

!pip install --upgrade kaggle

!export KAGGLE_USERNAME=abcdefgh
!export KAGGLE_KEY=abcdefgh

!export -p

However, the printed list of env. variables doesn't contain the ones I set above.

declare -x CLICOLOR="1"
declare -x CLOUDSDK_CONFIG="/content/.config"
declare -x COLAB_GPU="1"
declare -x CUDA_PKG_VERSION="9-2=9.2.148-1"
declare -x CUDA_VERSION="9.2.148"
declare -x CUDNN_VERSION="7.4.1.5"
declare -x DATALAB_SETTINGS_OVERRIDES="{\"kernelManagerProxyPort\":6000,\"kernelManagerProxyHost\":\"172.28.0.3\",\"jupyterArgs\":[\"notebook\",\"-y\",\"--no-browser\",\"--log-level=DEBUG\",\"--debug\",\"--NotebookApp.allow_origin=\\\"*\\\"\",\"--NotebookApp.log_format=\\\"%(message)s\\\"\",\"--NotebookApp.disable_check_xsrf=True\",\"--NotebookApp.token=\",\"--Session.key=\\\"\\\"\",\"--Session.keyfile=\\\"\\\"\",\"--ContentsManager.untitled_directory=\\\"Untitled Folder\\\"\",\"--ContentsManager.untitled_file=\\\"Untitled File\\\"\",\"--ContentsManager.untitled_notebook=\\\"Untitled Notebook\\\"\",\"--KernelManager.autorestart=True\",\"--ip=\\\"172.28.0.2\\\"\"]}"
declare -x DEBIAN_FRONTEND="noninteractive"
declare -x ENV="/root/.bashrc"
declare -x GIT_PAGER="cat"
declare -x GLIBCPP_FORCE_NEW="1"
declare -x GLIBCXX_FORCE_NEW="1"
declare -x HOME="/root"
declare -x HOSTNAME="2ced809e9844"
declare -x JPY_PARENT_PID="57"
declare -x LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
declare -x LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/usr/lib64-nvidia"
declare -x LD_PRELOAD="/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtcmalloc.so.4"
declare -x MPLBACKEND="module://ipykernel.pylab.backend_inline"
declare -x NCCL_VERSION="2.3.7"
declare -x NVIDIA_DRIVER_CAPABILITIES="compute,utility"
declare -x NVIDIA_REQUIRE_CUDA="cuda>=9.2"
declare -x NVIDIA_VISIBLE_DEVICES="all"
declare -x OLDPWD="/"
declare -x PAGER="cat"
declare -x PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/nvidia/bin:/usr/local/cuda/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/tools/node/bin:/tools/google-cloud-sdk/bin:/opt/bin"
declare -x PWD="/content"
declare -x PYTHONPATH="/env/python"
declare -x SHELL="/bin/bash"
declare -x SHLVL="2"
declare -x TERM="xterm-color"
declare -x TF_FORCE_GPU_ALLOW_GROWTH="true"
declare -x _="/tools/node/bin/forever"
declare -x __EGL_VENDOR_LIBRARY_DIRS="/usr/lib64-nvidia:/usr/share/glvnd/egl_vendor.d/"

I think you want to do something like:

import os
os.environ['KAGGLE_USERNAME'] = ...
os.environ['KAGGLE_KEY'] = ...

The reason is that !export will assign the environment variable in an ephemeral sub-shell. But, you want to update the environment for the Python subprocess that spawns those sub-shells.