diff --git a/templates/gitlab-ci-docker-vault.yml b/templates/gitlab-ci-docker-vault.yml
index dc813f50b593eab5681bf4687bd1bf0c923cfc13..11cd0c40ea973a1924740332db01d00374587713 100644
--- a/templates/gitlab-ci-docker-vault.yml
+++ b/templates/gitlab-ci-docker-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"
 
 .docker-base:
   services: