Tag Archives: Pipeline

Override Jenkins stage Function

Recently, I needed a mechanism to identify, as part of a try/catch block, which stage in a Jenkins Groovy Scripted Pipeline was the last to execute before the catch block was called.

Jenkins does not currently store details about the last stage to run outside of the context of that specific stage. So, in other words env.STAGE_NAME is valid with a particular stage("I'm a stage"){ //valid here} block, but not in, say, a catch(Exception e) { // where was I called from? } block.

To get around this, I found a few examples, and cobbled together something that I believe will provide future functionality. I present to you the extensibleContextStage:

// Jenkins groovy stages are somewhat lacking in their ability to persist 
// context state beyond the lifespan of the stage
// For example, to obtain the name of the last stage to run, 
// one needs to store the name in an ENV varialble (JENKINS 48315)
// https://issues.jenkins-ci.org/browse/JENKINS-48315

// We can create an extensible stage to provide attitional context to the pipeline
// about the state of the currently running stage.

// This also provides a capability to extend pre- and post- stage operations

// Idea / base code borrowed from https://stackoverflow.com/a/51081177/11125318
// and from https://issues.jenkins-ci.org/browse/JENKINS-48315?focusedCommentId=321366&page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels%3Acomment-tabpanel#comment-321366

def call(name, Closure closure) {
    env.BUILD_LAST_STAGE_STARTED = name
    try {
        stage(name) {
            def result = closure.call()
            return result
        }
        env.BUILD_LAST_STAGE_SUCCEEDED = name
    }
    catch(Exception ex) {
        env.BUILD_LAST_STAGE_FAILED = name
        throw ex;
    }
}

This is a drop-in replacement for stage(string name){ closure} blocks in a Jenkins Groovy Scripted Pipeline, but with the added benefit of additional environment variables:

  • env.BUILD_LAST_STAGE_STARTED
  • env.BUILD_LAST_STAGE_SUCCEEDED
  • env.BUILD_LAST_STAGE_FAILED

So, as a full example, one can now do this (which was previously awkward):


try {
    extensibleContextStage("Do some things")
    {
        //whatever
    }
    extensibleContextStage("Do some More things")
    {
       throw new Exception("MAYHEM!")
    }
    extensibleContextStage("Do some final things")
    {
        //whatever
    }
}
catch(Exception e){
    // at this point, with normal stage, we wouldn't know where MAYHEM came from,
    // but with extensibleContextStage, we can look at either
    // env.BUILD_LAST_STAGE_FAILED or  env.BUILD_LAST_STAGE_STARTED
    // to know that "Do some More things" was the offendign stage.
    // this is super handy to send "helpful" notifications to slack/email
}

I hope this helps someone (if even my future self)

TIL: Java code in Jenkins pipelines run on the Master

I was trying to read a file with Java.io.File in a Jenkins Groovy Scripted Pipeline on a non-master node. I kept getting an exception that the file was not found (java.io.FileNotFoundException)

Turns out that Java code written in scripted pipelines (Groovy) runs on the master node: https://issues.jenkins-ci.org/browse/JENKINS-37577. This is as-designed behavior, and accessing files in the workspace on a non-master node should use the readFile function in the Pipeline Basic Steps DSL https://jenkins.io/doc/pipeline/steps/workflow-basic-steps/#pwd-determine-current-directory

I’m thoroughly embarrassed at how many failed Jenkins jobs and alerts I’ve triggered while discovering this.