Getting Started with TeamCity

Later in this text we assume that you already:

• installed and launched TeamCity.

For a case of simplicity, lets consider that we have a program which writes «Hello, World!» on a screen in different languages, depending on users system language. There are several automatic test validating the output of the program.

Project Creation

To start building our «Hello, World!» project, lets create a new project in TeamCity.

Just click the Create Project link, then specify project's name and add some optional description.

Version Control System

To be able to build «Hello, World!» program and run all tests, TeamCity has to know where the source code resides, thus setting up VCS parameters is one of the mandatory steps.

Click Version Control Settings. At the Version Control Settings page, TeamCity suggests to create and attach new VCS Root.

VCS root creation process As you see we set up only a connection to SCM system. Our SCM system could contain many different projects. Well tell TeamCity how to retrieve project-specific folders later.

Build Configuration Creation

Now we have to explain TeamCity by which way it can build, test and deploy the program. This is what build configurations is for.

Every action you do by hands like compiling sources or running tests could be described in TeamCity build configuration and executed later.

For a case of simplicity, we do everything (building, testing and deploying) in one configuration. Moreover, our «Hello, World!» program is very simple, its easy and fast to build and test. Additional configurations would only produce an unnecessary complexity.

Build Configuration is created through a serie of several self-explaining steps. Lets stop talking and proceed with them.

Step 1: General Settings

There are several required parameters, but the only one which must be specified - name of the configuration. I suggest a boring but very clear name «Build, test and deploy».

Lets look at another parameter - «Artifact paths».

Looking ahead I can say we produce the only artifact - zip file containing a build version of «Hello, World!» program and README. screenshot

Step 2: VCS Settings

Next step is to explain TeamCity in what part of VCS you store your project code.

Weve already connected our version control system to TeamCity and we can simply attach the root now.

If we simply attach VCS root TeamCity will checkout full repository. This is appropriate in our case. For more complex projects you could prefer to checkout only some parts of your repository. No problem with that! Use Checkout rules for fine-grained specification.

Step 3: Build Steps

Build steps describe specific actions TeamCity should do to build, test or deploy a project. With «Hello, World!» project we need only 4 steps:

• Build (compile an executable from source code);

• Test (run tests over source code/executable);

• Pack (create a zip archive from executable and README);

• Deploy (upload the package to web site over FTP). Lets make the first step - Build - together to understand how you can configure a build step.

"Build" Step

First of all, we need to choose an appropriate build runner.

[] thats why well use only Command Line runner in this tutorial. image with Command Line runner configuration

"Test" Step

"Pack" Step

"Deploy" Step

Step 4: Build Failure Conditions

Sometimes problems with project arise: source code doesnt compile or tests fail. These are just a few examples of situations when TeamCity can mark a build as failed and notify you about it by email, instant message or even in IDE.

By default three failure conditions are chosen:

• build process exit code is not zero;

• at least one test failed;

• an out-of-memory or crash is detected (Java only).

Its more than enough for us right now. Click Save and move to next step.

Step 5: Build Triggers

Run the Build

We configured everything and its time to run a new build and see if we did any mistake .

There are two ways to run a build for our project:

• make a new commit (as we configured a build trigger);

• click Run button (in this case TeamCity check your source repository for the latest changes and start building the program after retrieving them).

As soon as a new build has started, you can see some changes in UI. screenshot here

Progress bar TeamCity informs you about a state and a progress of your build. If test fails or some problem occurs you immediately see it in the interface.

Agents First of all, what is an agent?

You can see that only one agent is connected to our build server. This agent was installed and launched during the server installation process.