How to set environment variable in node.js process when deploying with github action

I am trying to build an CI pipeline for my node.js server using github actions.

I just need to solve one issue. I need to set environment variable, so that my node.js server can access the env variable via process.env

Below is the github action workflow file.

name: Build and Deploy to GKE

on:
  pull_request:
    branches:
      - master

# Environment variables available to all jobs and steps in this workflow
env:
  ENGINE_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.ENGINE_API_KEY }}

jobs:
  setup-build-publish-deploy:
    name: Setup, Build, Publish, and Deploy
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v2

      - name: Apollo Schema Update
        env:
          ENGINE_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.ENGINE_API_KEY }}
        run: |
          sudo npm install
          sudo npm install -g apollo
          sudo npm run dev &
          sleep 3
          sudo apollo service:push --serviceURL=http://auth-cluster-ip-service --serviceName=auth --tag=master --endpoint=http://localhost:3051

I have tried declaring environment variable both workflow level and job's level, but when I console.log(process.env.ENGINE_API_KEY), it returns undefined.

I also tried ENGINE_API_KEY=$ENGINE_API_KEY npm run dev & instead of npm run dev &. This works on my macbook, but with github action, it still returns undefined.

(I did store ENGINE_API_KEY in settings -> secret. worked fine for other variables)

Create an .env file that can be read by your node server and pass in your repository secret that way. This should be done after your checkout step:

    - name: create env file
      run: |
        touch .env
        echo ENGINE_API_KEY=${{ secrets.ENGINE_API_KEY }} >> .env

  - name: Create and populate .env file
    env:
      ...
      AWS_HOST: ${{ secrets.AWS_HOST }}
      DBNAME: ${{ secrets.DBNAME }}
      ...
    run: |
      touch .env
      ...
      echo aws_host="$AWS_HOST" >> .Renviron
      echo dbname="$DBNAME" >> .Renviron
      ...

      echo "cat .env"
      cat .env

      echo "ls -a ."
      ls -a .

      echo "ls -a ${{ github.workspace }}"
      ls -a ${{ github.workspace }}
    shell: bash