Hey Richard,
Traditionally, a way to set environment variables is to modify them using the
script.start property. At the moment however, there is no way to modify those properties in production as they are set by the Cloud Functions infrastructure.
Given that this product is still in an Alpha phase, this sounds like an excellent feature request. I strongly encourage you file a new feature request on the
Cloud SDK public issue tracker. If/when doing so, please include a link to it here so others can follow through and
star the request for support.