I've found some curious behaviour when trying to create a variable in a Jira automation routine. If I create a variable in a branch line so:

{{cake}} was able to be recalled in the email within that branch ("cakecake"), but isn't able to be recalled outside of that branch (the one called "middle").
While trying to debug this behaviour I discovered by chance that by adding a new variable before the first branch somehow resulted in the expected behaviour. ie the automation below worked and the value of {{cake}} was able to be recalled in the email "middle"

Not sure if this is a bug in the way the platform handles variable creation, or I think in my troubleshooting googling i read something somewhere that branches may be processed in parallel, meaning that perhaps the email "middle" is being sent before the branch that creates {{cake}} is executed?