Extending a Jenkins/Hudson plugin to set a environment variable pair

Question

I am extending an existing Jenkins/Hudson plugin. I would like it to set a environment variable pair for the running project. What is the easiest way to do that?

Answer 1

During build, for example in a Builder's perform() method, you can do at least this:

@Override
public boolean perform(Build<?, ?> build, Launcher launcher, BuildListener listener)
                       throws InterruptedException, IOException {
    //...
    List<ParameterValue> params = new ArrayList<ParameterValue>();
    params.add(new StringParameterValue(name1, value1));
    params.add(new StringParameterValue(name2, value2));
    build.addAction(new ParametersAction(params));
    //...
}

It will add the key-value pairs as build parameters, which will be visible as environment variables too, in the usual manner. Note: I have not tested that extensively, there may be some "gotcha" which presents itself in some situation... But it has worked for me so far.