Setting up and using environment variables in IntelliJ Idea

It is possible to reference an intellij 'Path Variable' in an intellij 'Run Configuration'.

In 'Path Variables' create a variable for example ANALYTICS_VERSION.

In a 'Run Configuration' under 'Environment Variables' add for example the following:

ANALYTICS_LOAD_LOCATION=$MAVEN_REPOSITORY$\com\my\company\analytics\$ANALYTICS_VERSION$\bin

To answer the original question you would need to add an APP_HOME environment variable to your run configuration which references the path variable:

APP_HOME=$APP_HOME$

Path Variables dialog has nothing to do with the environment variables.

Environment variables can be specified in your OS or customized in the Run configuration:

I could not get environment variables to work when IntelliJ Build and run property was using Gradle. I am not sure what the root cause is, but switching to IntelliJ IDEA solved the problem. Go to Preferences -> Build, Execution, Deployment -> Build Tools -> Gradle. Then change Build and run using: to IntelliJ IDEA.

If the above answer + restarting the IDE didn't do, try restarting "Jetbrains Toolbox" if you use it, this did it for me