Build only latest commit on branch with Jenkins

Question

This seems too trivial to ask, but I could not find an answer:

In a Multibranch Pipeline project (controlled by Jenkinsfile): How can I skip previous builds on a branch, if there is a newer one and only build the latest commit and/or the tip of the branch?

     Build is running        
  ├────────────────────┤

o────────o────────o────────o
↑        ↑        ↑        ↑
Build    Skip     Skip     Build this


──────────────────────────────────>
                              (t)

Answer 1

Jenkins built-in workflow-job-plugin has disableConcurrentBuilds directive that takes one boolean parameter named abortPrevious. The parameter is undocumented in the official Jenkins documentation but is mentioned in the PR to the workflow-job-plugin and available since version 2.42 of the aforementioned plugin.

Having that in mind the feature to cancel previous builds can be enabled in Jenkins by:

• using Scripted Pipeline:

  node {
      properties([
          disableConcurrentBuilds(abortPrevious: true)
      ])
      [...]
  }
  

• using Declarative Pipeline:

  pipeline {
      agent any
      options {
          disableConcurrentBuilds(abortPrevious: true)
      }
      stages { ... }
  }