CodeBuild execution continues after build fails instead of stopping

Question

I'm building a CI/CD pipeline using git, codebuild and elastic beanstalk.

During codebuild execution when build fails due to syntax error of a test case, I see codebuild progress to next stage and ultimately go on to produce the artifacts.

My understanding was if the build fails, execution should stop. is this a correct behavior ?

Please see the buildspec below.

    version: 0.2      phases:       install:         commands:           - echo Installing package.json..           - npm install           - echo Installing Mocha...           - npm install -g mocha       pre_build:         commands:           - echo Installing source NPM placeholder dependencies...       build:         commands:           - echo Build started on `date`           - echo Compiling the Node.js code           - mocha modules/**/tests/*.js       post_build:         commands:           - echo Build completed on `date`     artifacts:       files:         - modules/*         - node_modules/*         - package.json         - config/*         - server.js 

Answer 1

CodeBuild detects build failures by exit codes. You should ensure that your test execution returns a non-zero exit code on failure.

POST_BUILD will always run as long as BUILD was also run (regardless of BUILD's success or failure.) The same goes for UPLOAD_ARTIFACTS. This is so you can retrieve debug information/artifacts.

If you want to do something different in POST_BUILD depending on the success or failure of BUILD, you can test the builtin environment variable CODEBUILD_BUILD_SUCCEEDING, which is set to 1 if BUILD succeeded, and 0 if it failed.

Answer 2

CodeBuild uses the environment variable CODEBUILD_BUILD_SUCCEEDING to show if the build process seems to go right.

the best way I found right now is to create a small script in the install secion and then alway use this like:

phases:   install:     commands:       - echo '#!/bin/bash' > /usr/local/bin/ok; echo 'if [[ "$CODEBUILD_BUILD_SUCCEEDING" == "0" ]]; then exit 1; else exit 0; fi' >> /usr/local/bin/ok; chmod +x /usr/local/bin/ok   post_build:     commands:       - ok && echo Build completed on `date`