Jenkins

I have used automated build tools on all my projects since 2000. Back then it was CruiseControl in all its XML-configuration glory. Today it is usually Jenkins, or sometimes TeamCity, and I recently tried out ThoughtWorks Go. The user interfaces have generally improved over time, and now there is probably a “plugin for that” thing you used to script manually, but overall not much has changed in the last 15 years.

In fact, I feel that The Build is actually flakier now than it was then, mostly due to the increased complexity.

I encountered this error while setting up a Jenkins job to automate our Maven release process.

[INFO] EXECUTING: cmd.exe /X /C "hg commit --message "[maven-release-plugin] prepare for next development iteration" c:\jenkins\jobs\Release\workspace\pom.xml"  
[DEBUG] abort: C:\Jenkins\jobs\Release\workspace\pom.xml not under root  
[ERROR] EXECUTION FAILED  
Execution of cmd : commit failed with exit code: -1.  
Working directory was:  
c:\jenkins\jobs\Release\workspace  
Your Hg installation seems to be valid and complete.  
Hg version: 2.0 (OK)  

Our Jenkins box runs on Windows. It turns out the Mercurial (HG) is case- sensitive in a way that hadn’t impacted our project in any way up until this point. Note the subtle differences in the first two log statements: