I am setting the description to a link, so that users can get a windows explorer to all of the files. I don't really care about the regex, etc, since the path is always the same for every job.

<a href="file:$MASTER_HOME/jobs/$JOB_NAME/builds/$BUILD_NUMBER/archive/artifacts" target="_blank">file</a>

Now, the variables $JOB_NAME and $BUILD_NUMBER are set by hudson and are expanded correctly. $MASTER_HOME comes from "the outside". (I have a similar variable for an http style link called MASTER_HTTP that I have the same issue with.)

I tried the environment variable setting from Hudson->Manage Hudson->Configure System->Global Properties. It didn't expand MASTER_HOME or MASTER_HTTP.
I tried setting environment variables from a file and hardcoding the variables in the job itself. (I believe these are plugins in my environment.) This also didn't work.
Finally, I tried passing $MASTER_HOME via parameterized build and it expanded correclty.

Can we make this wonderful plugin see "the rest" of the environment variables out there?