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- Build Priority: Normal
- Associate: Most recent changesets
- Comment: No comment set
- Repository Branch: All repository branches will be set to their default.
- Variables: All variables will be set to their default values.
Limiting Who Can Manually Start Builds
Security can be added to a build's configuration that can limit which users are able to manually start a build. Only users that have the Start Build permission can manually start a build. Check out the Roles & Permissions section for more information on permissions.
The Build Queue
The Build Queue is where all builds wait until an agent becomes available that that can run the next stage in the build becomes available. An agent is only eligible to run a stage if the agent has all the required applications installed so that it can . Basically an agent can only run a stage if it has every application that is needed to execute every action on that stage.
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If you are frequently seeing builds waiting for available agents then there are more concurrent builds running then there are agents. By adding additional agents to Continua you should see a decrease in the number of builds that are waiting for an agent. Note that additional agents are only available to customers that have purchased additional concurrent builds for their Continua CI instance.
Stopping Builds
All builds can be stopped mid execution. Regardless of what stage a build is currently executing, the build can be stopped immediately by clicking Stop Build on the build page or Cancel/Stop on the configuration page. When a build has been told to stop while executing an action, the Continua agent will attempt to stop the current action. The agent will not run any further actions for the build, including syncing the agent back to the server. Continua treats stopped builds as discarded builds and will simply stop any further actions from occurring.
Only users with the Stop Build permission can manually stop builds.
Cancelling Builds
Cancelling a build is similar to stopping a build however only builds that are on the build queue can be Cancelled. A cancelled build will stop trying to find an agent and will be taken off the build queue immediately.
Only users with the Stop Build permission can manually cancel builds.
Quiet Periods
Promoting Stages
Quiet Periods allow you to leave a build on the queue for a set period of time and it will listen for any additional changesets being added to a triggering repository. Quiet Periods can be associated to repository triggers and they allow you to specify a time window where any additional checkins to a repository will be added to the currently queued build rather then creating a new build per changeset.
You can end a quiet period early by clicking End Quiet Period on the build details page or by clicking the End Quiet Period button on the configuration page (Blue clock button as shown below). By ending a quiet period, the build will no longer wait for additional changesets and will put the build on the queue to wait for the next available agent.
For more information regarding repository triggers and quiet periods, see the Repository Triggers page.
Promoting Stages
Stages can be setup so that they will only execute if they are manually promoted through Continua. If a build reaches a promoted stage successfully then the build is considered a success and it is removed from the build queue. Once the build has been promoted to the next stage it will be placed back on the queue and will wait for the next available agent.
Promoting stages is designed so that you can limit the final stages of a build so that they can only be run by certain users. For example you may setup your configuration so that your build includes a Deploy stage that can only be executed manually by your lead developer.
Setting a stage to be manually promoted can be done by unchecking the Automatically promote to the next stage option on the stage directly before the stage that requires manual promotion. This option can be found by editing the appropriate stage through the Stages section of the Configuration Wizard. By unchecking this option you are telling Continua to stop at the current stage and not move on to the next stage.
Builds can be promoted by clicking the Promote button on the builds page (As shown below).
Only users with the Promote Build permission can promote builds.
Advanced Stage Control
Promoting stages can be used to limit which users can finish a build process, however additional work can be done to ensure certain builds never reach certain stages. In the example above you have a Deploy stage that can only be executed by your lead developer. Lets say that you also want to limit which builds can reach the Deploy. For example, you should only ever deploy builds that were triggered by a release branch checkin. This scenario can be achieved by creating an If Action that checks if the current repository branch is NOT the release branch. If it is not the release branch then we run a Stop Action that ends the current build. These actions should be placed at the end of the stage that executes immediately before the Deploy stage. Stopping a build will end the build immediately and will be considered as a successfully completed build.
Tagging Builds
Pinning Builds
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