Gitlab CI/CD unable to assume variables

i am unable to have my pipeline assume project variables i made in the ci cd sections of my project. When i run terraform init i get the error "error configuring S3 Backend: no valid credential sources for S3 backend found. (see screenshot attached)

You can see in my other attached screenshot that i have set these variables (they are correct) and belong to the root aws account. I have also attached my gitlab ci yml which sets the environment for all the required variables that i have set to authenticate to aws (aws access/secret key/default region).

It appears that my personal variables (non project) were allowing me to connect initially but once i removed them i no longer can. I would like the project specifics ones to work.

any help would be much appreciated!

EDIT: dont think i can attach screenshots so here is everything.

GITLAB YML

image:
name: registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-org/terraform-images/stable:latest
entrypoint:
- ‘/usr/bin/env’
- ‘PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin’

variables:
NSLDS_DIR: “./test/nslds/”
PPO_DIR: “./test/ppo/”
team1: “ifo”
team2: “developers”
team3: “security”

stages:

  • nslds-deploy-ifo
  • nslds-deploy-developers
  • nslds-deploy-security
  • ppo-deploy-ifo
  • ppo-deploy-developers
  • ppo-deploy-security

deploy to nslds-test-ifo:
stage: nslds-deploy-ifo
script:

  • cd $NSLDS_DIR/$team1
  • terraform init
  • terraform apply -auto-approve

deploy to nslds-test-developers:
stage: nslds-deploy-developers
script:

  • cd $NSLDS_DIR/$team2
  • terraform init
  • terraform apply -auto-approve

deploy to nslds-test-security:
stage: nslds-deploy-security
script:

  • cd $NSLDS_DIR/$team3
  • terraform init
  • terraform apply -auto-approve

environment:
name: nslds-test
only:
- main

deploy to ppo-test-ifo:
stage: ppo-deploy-ifo
script:

  • cd $PPO_DIR/$team1
  • terraform init
  • terraform apply -auto-approve

deploy to ppo-test-developers:
stage: ppo-deploy-developers
script:

  • cd $PPO_DIR/$team2
  • terraform init
  • terraform apply -auto-approve

deploy to ppo-test-security:
stage: ppo-deploy-security
script:

  • cd $PPO_DIR/$team3
  • terraform init
  • terraform apply -auto-approve

environment:
name: ppo-test
only:
- main