---
title: Set environment variable for one command with csh
kind: blog
description: 'Setting an environment variable for the next command is easy with bash - as it turns out, also with csh. Here''s how:'
words: 135
readingMinutes: 1
created: '2014-09-23T17:34:26.000Z'
updated: '2026-06-27T21:03:45+02:00'
tags:
  - freebsd
  - system-administration
---
TL;DR: Run this:

```shell
env ENV_VAR_NAME=ENV_VAR_VALUE command
```

On most machines I use, bash is the default shell, or at least available (yes, also on the Windows box where I am typing this post). I am not a fanatic bash user, most shells work just fine. But being used to "the bash way", where setting environment variables for the next run command is pretty easy (_KEY=VALUE command_), it tricks me up each time I have to use csh on FreeBSD. (Sure, I could just install bash there too, but I prefer using included tools and installing as few dependencies as necessary.) So each time I use FreeBSD, I have to look this up on Google. This being Unix, there are of course several solutions. The one I found earlier today and which worked fine for me was this:

```shell
env KEY=VALUE command
```