diff --git a/apps/agent-zero/agent-zero.yaml b/apps/agent-zero/agent-zero.yaml
index 03b48a8..d1dce8f 100644
--- a/apps/agent-zero/agent-zero.yaml
+++ b/apps/agent-zero/agent-zero.yaml
@@ -257,7 +257,7 @@ spec:
               # the secret-backed env vars before initialize.sh. Keep the local
               # corpus_search.py tool mounted either way so outage fallback
               # remains available even when fc_knowledge is not advertised.
-              KNOWLEDGE_MCP_ENABLED=false
+              export KNOWLEDGE_MCP_ENABLED=false
               if [ -n "${KNOWLEDGE_MCP_BEARER_TOKEN:-}" ]; then
                 if curl -sf --connect-timeout 3 "${KNOWLEDGE_MCP_HEALTH_URL}" > /dev/null && \
                    curl -sf --connect-timeout 5 \
@@ -266,7 +266,7 @@ spec:
                      -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
                      -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":"fc-knowledge-bootstrap","method":"initialize","params":{"protocolVersion":"2025-03-26","capabilities":{},"clientInfo":{"name":"agent-zero-bootstrap","version":"1.0"}}}' \
                      "${KNOWLEDGE_MCP_URL}" > /dev/null; then
-                  KNOWLEDGE_MCP_ENABLED=true
+                  export KNOWLEDGE_MCP_ENABLED=true
                   echo "fc_knowledge enabled from ${KNOWLEDGE_MCP_URL}."
                 else
                   echo "fc_knowledge unavailable or unauthorized; keeping local corpus_search.py as the fallback path."