Show current state of Jenkins build on GitHub repo

Question

Is there a way to show the Jenkins build status on my project's GitHub Readme.md?

I use Jenkins to run continuous integration builds. After each commit it ensures that everything compiles, as well as executes unit and integration tests, before finally producing documentation and release bundles.

There's still a risk of inadvertently committing something that breaks the build. It would be good for users visiting the GitHub project page to know the current master is in that state.

Answer 1

In the meanwhile the UI of Jenkins and GitHub has changed a bit and it took me a while to figure out how to configure Jenkins now correctly. The explanation here is based on Jenkins version 2.121.1.

I also assume that you have already configured your Jenkins Job be triggered by a webhook or by polling. Those are the steps that I have taken to get it working:

1. Configure GitHub: Create Personal Access Token with OAuth Scope repo:status
2. Configure Jenkins: Configure System and add the OAuth Secret as a GitHub Server - use Secret Text as an authentication method to put the OAuth Secret in there.
3. Configure your Jenkins Job: Add Set GitHub commit status as Post-build action. Set the Status Result to One of the default messages and statuses.
4. Check your result on GitHub: Check if you get the build status and build execution duration on your GitHub commit.

Configure GitHub

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Configure Jenkins

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Configure Jenkins Job

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Result

You will now see the status for your commits and branches:

Answer 2

I followed the directions from Alex and it worked.

But, for GitHub Enterprise you need to modify the API URL when adding the server to Jenkins.

For example, if your company is creditcard.com, your URL would be

https://github.creditcard.com/api/v3/

Answer 3

What I did was quite simple:

1. Install the Hudson Post Task Plugin

2. Create a Personal Access Token here: Personal access tokens (classic)

3. Add a Post Task Plugin that always adds success

   curl -XPOST -H "Authorization: token OAUTH TOKEN" https://api.github.com/repos/:organization/:repos/statuses/$(git rev-parse HEAD) -d "{
     \"state\": \"success\",
     \"target_url\": \"${BUILD_URL}\",
     \"description\": \"The build has succeeded!\"
   }"
   

4. Add a Post Task Plugin that will add failure if "marked build as failure"

   curl -XPOST -H "Authorization: token OAUTH TOKEN" https://api.github.com/repos/:organization/:repos/statuses/$(git rev-parse HEAD) -d "{
     \"state\": \"failure\",
     \"target_url\": \"${BUILD_URL}\",
     \"description\": \"The build has failed!\"
   }"
   

5. You can also add a call to pending at the beginning of tests

   curl -XPOST -H "Authorization: token OAUTH TOKEN" https://api.github.com/repos/:organization/:repos/statuses/$(git rev-parse HEAD) -d "{
     \"state\": \"pending\",
     \"target_url\": \"${BUILD_URL}\",
     \"description\": \"The build is pending!\"
   }"
   

Answer 4

This plugin should work: Embeddable Build Status

You should be able to embed badges like this into your README.md file:

Answer 5

I'm no longer using this approach. Please use one of the other answers.

What I ended up doing, for our specific case: (the previous answers were great - thanks!)

Because our build server is not on the Internet, we have a script to publish the build status to the gh-pages branch on GitHub.

• Start of build stamps failing
• End of build stamps success
• Project runs after main project to publish results -> build-status, API docs, test reports and test coverage.

GitHub caches images, so we created a .htaccess file, that instructs a short cache timeout for the build-status image.

Put this in the directory with the build-status image:

ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 2 minutes"

Here's the build script. The target that publishes to gh-pages is '--publish.site.dry.run'

With less than 400 lines of configuration, we have:

• Compile checks
• Unit & integration tests
• Test Reports
• Code Coverage Reports
• API documentation
• Publishing to GitHub

. . and this script can be run in or outside of Jenkins, so that:

• Developers can run this script before commit, reducing the chance of a broken build that impacts others.
• A failure is easy to reproduce locally.

The Results:

Project main page has the build status, updated after each build, along with latest API documentation, test results and test coverage.

Answer 6

I am adding to this answer, and also to this one. They have answered the question, but they didn't give us a proper intuition about the problem

So, here are my intuitions:

• We need to add status to our GitHub commit. This status is based upon the results of our Jenkins build.

• To do this, we need to give Jenkins access to the GitHub API, not to the repo. We do this through OAuth, and we can create the token going to the GitHub settings → Developer settings → Personal access tokens. Then for a public GitHub repository just check repo:status, and for a private repository, check the whole repository section

• After creating your access token you need to add it to your Jenkins server:

• Copy and paste the access token to the GitHub plugin section settings, under your Jenkins configurations

• Create a GitHub server. It defaults to api.github.com. And add the access token as a secret text credentials.

• The last step is to add a post build settings when you create your pipeline.

Resources:

• Here is a section of a YouTube video in which he goes over the above steps.
• Read about OAuth

Answer 7

For pipeline projects, you can use the post section like so:

void setBuildStatus(String message, String state) {
  step([
      $class: "GitHubCommitStatusSetter",
      reposSource: [$class: "ManuallyEnteredRepositorySource", url: "https://github.com/my-user/my-repo"],
      contextSource: [$class: "ManuallyEnteredCommitContextSource", context: "ci/jenkins/build-status"],
      errorHandlers: [[$class: "ChangingBuildStatusErrorHandler", result: "UNSTABLE"]],
      statusResultSource: [ $class: "ConditionalStatusResultSource", results: [[$class: "AnyBuildResult", message: message, state: state]] ]
  ]);
}

pipeline {
    agent any

    triggers {
        githubPush()
    }

    stages {

        stage('Hello') {
            steps {
                echo 'Hello World'
            }
        }

    }

    post {
        success {
            setBuildStatus("Build succeeded", "SUCCESS");
        }
        failure {
            setBuildStatus("Build failed", "FAILURE");
        }
    }
}

Just change "https://github.com/my-user/my-repo" to meet your GitHub repository.

Reference: How to set GitHub commit status with Jenkinsfile NOT using a pull request builder

Answer 8

Add the below line in your README.md file and change both URLs according to your Jenkins project.

[![Build Status](https://jenkins../..project/lastBuild/buildStatus)](https://jenkins../..project/lastBuild/)

Answer 9

There's also the plugin Embeddable Build Status that will give you a badge URL that you can post in your README.md file, and it looks like this:

Answer 10

If you have the GitHub plugin installed on your Jenkins, you can do it in the Post build actions like this:

Answer 11

Jently updates your GitHub commit status (as described by vonc), but unfortunately they have yet to implement the Repo Status API.

Answer 12

Ok, here's how you can set up Jenkins to set GitHub build statuses. This assumes you've already got Jenkins with the GitHub plugin configured to do builds on every push.

1. Go to GitHub, log in, go to Settings, Developer Settings, Personal access tokens and click on Generate new token.

   

2. Check repo:status (I'm not sure this is necessary, but I did it, and it worked for me).

   

3. Generate the token, copy it.

4. Make sure the GitHub user you're going to use is a repository collaborator (for private repos) or is a member of a team with push and pull access (for organization repos) to the repositories you want to build.

5. Go to your Jenkins server, log in.

6. Manage Jenkins → Configure System

7. Under GitHub Web Hook select Let Jenkins auto-manage hook URLs, then specify your GitHub username and the OAuth token you got in step 3.

   

8. Verify that it works with the Test Credential button. Save the settings.

9. Find the Jenkins job and add Set build status on GitHub commit to the post-build steps

   

That's it. Now do a test build and go to GitHub repository to see if it worked. Click on Branches in the main repository page to see build statuses.

You should see green checkmarks:

Answer 13

In regards with setting up Jenkins and GitHub's protected branch. I'm using Jenkins 2.6, and these are the steps I did to make it work:

On your repository's GitHub webpage:

1. Navigate to Settings > Branches.
2. Under Protect branches, click on the Choose a branch drown down menu and select the branch you want to set as a Protected branch.
3. Enable the options as needed.

On the Jenkins Server: (Make sure you have the Git and GitHub Plugin installed)

1. Navigate to Manage Jenkins > Configure System.
2. Under GitHub, set the API URL to https://api.github.com. Though this is the default value.
3. Select your generated token for the Credentials. If you haven't generated a token yet, click on Advanced... then on Additional actions, you can convert your login and password to token and use it as your credential.

Also, make sure the GitHub account that your Jenkins is using is a collaborator for the repository. I've set it with write permission level.

Hope this helps.

Answer 14

The Commit Status API allows you to see the "Repo Statuses API".

And since April 26th 2013, you now can see the build status on your GitHub repo branch page:

That means it is another way, by visiting the GitHub project page, to see those statuses instead of having only Jenkins.

Starting April 30th, 2013, the API endpoint for commit statuses has been extended to allow branch and tag names, as well as commit SHAs.