I have an appsettings.json file with a variable which is a list of strings: [“foo”, “bar”].
I’m trying to overwrite this variable with an environment variable. When I do, I still receive the value from appsettings when I retrieve the variable as a list. If I retrieve it as a string, I receive the environment variable value.

My current code is as follows:

appsettings.json file:

{
  "MyVariable": ["test"],
}

Program.cs file:

var configuration = new ConfigurationBuilder()
            .SetBasePath(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory())
            .AddJsonFile("appsettings.json")
            .AddEnvironmentVariables()
            .Build();

If I run the following code without injecting any environment variables, it works.

var result = config.GetSection("MyVariable").Get<List<string>>(); // returns a list with one element "test"

If I add the following environment variable and run again, I still get the same result: A list with one element “test”.
MyVariable=["foo", "bar"]

The odd thing is: If I run config.GetSection("MyVariable").Get<string>() it returns this string: MyVariable=["foo", "bar"].

How do I define MyVariable as a list, so I can still retrieve it with: config.GetSection("MyVariable").Get<List<string>>()