Triggering a Custom Build

A build configuration usually has Configuring Build Triggers configured in it which automatically start new build each time the conditions are met, like scheduled time, or detection of VCS changes are detected, etc. However TeamCity allows to trigger a build manually whenever you need, and customize this build by adding properties, using specific changes, running the build on specific agent, etc.

There are several ways of launching a custom build in TeamCity:

• Click the ellipsis on the Run button, and specify the options in the Run Custom Build dialog described runCustomBuild.

• To run a custom build with specific changes, open build results page, go to the Changes tab, expand the required change and click the Run build with this change and proceed with the runCustomBuild in the Run Custom Build dialog.

• Use Accessing Server by HTTP to TeamCity to trigger a build

General Options

Select an agent you want to run the build on from the drop-down list. Note, that for each agent in the list, TeamCity displays its current state, and estimates when the agent will become idle, if it runs a build at the moment. Besides the possibility to run a build on a particular agent from the list, you can also use one of the following options:

• fastest idle agent — default option; if selected, TeamCity will automatically choose an agent to run a build on based on calculated estimates.

• all enabled compatible agents — select to run a build simultaneously on all agents that are enabled and compatible with the build configuration. This option may be useful in following cases:

  • run a build for agent maintenance purposes (e.g. you can create a configuration to check whether agents function properly after environment upgrade/update).

  • run a build on different platforms (for example, you can set up a configuration, and specify for it a number of compatible build agents with different environments installed).

In General options you can also specify that this particular build should be run as a Personal Build one. Additionally, you can put the build to the top position in the Build Queue.

Dependencies

This tab is available only for builds that have artifact dependencies on other builds. You can enforce rebuilding of all dependencies and select particular build from which artifacts should be taken.

Changes

The tab allows you to specify a particular change to be included to the build. The build will use the change's revision to checkout the sources. That is, all the changes up to the selected one will be included into the build. Please note, that TeamCity displays only the changes earlier detected by TeamCity for the current build configuration VCS roots. If the VCS root was detached from the build configuration since the change occurred, there is no ability to run the build on such change. A limited number of changes is displayed. If there is an earlier change in TeamCity that you need to run build on, you can locate the change in the Change Log and use Run build with this change action. This section is available only if you have permissions to access VCS roots for the build configuration and if build configuration has pending changes.

• Latest changes at the moment the build is started: TeamCity will automatically include all changes available at the moment.

• Last change to include: When you select a change in the drop-down list, TeamCity runs the build with the selected change and all changes that were made before it.

Properties

This tab show all configuration parameters currently defined for the build configuration. You can add new, edit, and delete additional properties/variables, or edit values of predefined ones. These settings are available only if you have permissions to change system properties and environment variables for the build configuration. When adding/editing/deleting properties and variables, note the following:

• For a predefined property/variable you can edit only its value.

• Only newly added properties/variables can be deleted. You cannot delete predefined properties.

• Click the Reset link next to the predefined property to reset its value to the default one.

Comment

Add optional comment to the build.

To create history builds, TeamCity always uses the VCS roots and settings that are now actual for the particular build configuration. If you delete a VCS root from the build configuration, you can no longer trigger history builds with changes which the root contained.

Triggering a build with custom artifact dependency

When you have Artifact Dependencies configured, at some point you may need to start a build with custom artifact dependencies. For example, if your build configuration A is configured to take artifacts from the last successful build of configuration B, and you want to include some specific artifacts from B, different from the last successful.

To do that, you can open build results page of build B you want to use artifacts from and click Actions | Promote.