diff --git a/templates/gitlab-ci-helm-vault.yml b/templates/gitlab-ci-helm-vault.yml
index 266d973021c67c5e9a64bc57a0fff7189438388f..571e67e61e211b81c356224b807c4a45979a41d2 100644
--- a/templates/gitlab-ci-helm-vault.yml
+++ b/templates/gitlab-ci-helm-vault.yml
@@ -1,6 +1,10 @@
 # =====================================================================================================================
 # === Vault template variant
 # =====================================================================================================================
+variables:
+  # variables have to be explicitly declared in the YAML to be exported to the service
+  VAULT_ROLE_ID: "$VAULT_ROLE_ID"
+  VAULT_SECRET_ID: "$VAULT_SECRET_ID"
 
 .helm-base:
   services: