Empty environment variable from secret in github-action

I have a repository that hosts a standard jekyll website with github pages. I am trying to add a workflow to update some content with this:

name: Update gallery
on: push

jobs:
  update_gallery:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - name: Update gallery
        env:
          INSTAGRAM_ACCESS_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.INSTAGRAM_ACCESS_TOKEN }}
        run: |
          echo 'ENV GREP'
          env | grep INSTAGRAM
          echo 'WC -M'
          echo $INSTAGRAM_ACCESS_TOKEN | wc -m

but for some reasons INSTAGRAM_ACCESS_TOKEN is empty. The job outputs:

ENV GREP
INSTAGRAM_ACCESS_TOKEN=
WC -M
0

I've set the secret in the github-pages environment at first, then I tried in a custom environment (I'm not sure what that changes...) but nothing works. Do you know why this environment variable is empty?

@Azeem you were right, I tried adding the github-pages environment and it worked.

That made me re-think that there must be a possibility of creating a secret without an environment. There is! I had missed it in the Settings.

You can create secrets on the repo level instead of in an environment.