CloudFormation how to export a variable - linux

Question

The following is a part of our template. We export a path variable there. However, running from template, this does not work. If I SSH into the server and run the same line, it works and I can use gradle. But just from the template, it somehow doesn't get executed. The other chmod commands work, so the block is clearly execute. Any help is highly appreciated.
...
"LaunchConfiguration": {
"Type": "AWS::AutoScaling::LaunchConfiguration",
"Metadata": {
"AWS::CloudFormation::Init": {
"config": {
"packages": {
"yum": {
"java-1.8.0-openjdk-devel": []
}
},
"sources": {
"/opt": "https://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-3.4.1-bin.zip",
"/home/ec2-user": "https://github.com/ABC/XYZ/archive/master.zip"
},
"files": {
"/tmp/gradle_config": {
"content": {
"Fn::Join": ["",
[
"#!/bin/bash -ex\n",
"chmod -R 755 gradle-3.4.1/\n",
"export PATH=$PATH:/opt/gradle-3.4.1/bin\n" //<<<< This does not work
]
]
},
"mode": "000500",
"owner": "root",
"group": "root"
},
"/tmp/app_config": {
"content": {
"Fn::Join": ["",
[
"#!/bin/bash -ex\n",
"chmod -R 777 XYZ-master/\n"
]
]
},
"mode": "000500",
"owner": "root",
"group": "root"
}
},
"commands": {
"01_config": {
"command": "/tmp/gradle_config",
"cwd" : "/opt"
},
"02_config": {
"command": "/tmp/app_config",
"cwd" : "/home/ec2-user"
}
}
}
}
}, ...

Answer 1

I found the solution. All those lines are executed as root user. The export PATH... therefore wasn't for my ec2-user. The way I handled is was by putting the path variable (globally) into the /etc/environment file.
In my code snippet, just replace
"export PATH=$PATH:/opt/gradle-3.4.1/bin\n",
with
"echo \"PATH=$PATH:/opt/gradle-3.4.1/bin\" >> /etc/environment"",