Gitlab to Jenkins webhook with parameters

Question

I'm trying to build a job on my jenkins using Gitlab webhook when pushing into a specific branch. The only issue I have is that the jenkins job is parameterized. The parameter is the branch name. Is there an option to add the branch name (its a different branch every time) to the webhook so it will be inserted automatically into the parameter in the jenkins job parameter?

Thanks

Answer 1

GitLab invokes the webhook URL with a JSON payload in the request body that carries a lot of information about the GitLab event that led to the webhook invocation. The JSON payload for the GitLab push event does have branch name information in it -- see the "ref" field in the GitLab webhook push event payload:

{
  "object_kind": "push",
  "before": "95790bf891e76fee5e1747ab589903a6a1f80f22",
  "after": "da1560886d4f094c3e6c9ef40349f7d38b5d27d7",
  "ref": "refs/heads/master",
  "checkout_sha": "da1560886d4f094c3e6c9ef40349f7d38b5d27d7",
  "user_id": 4,
  "user_name": "John Smith",
  "user_username": "jsmith",
  "user_email": "[email protected]",
  "user_avatar": "https://s.gravatar.com/avatar/d4c74594d841139328695756648b6bd6?s=8://s.gravatar.com/avatar/d4c74594d841139328695756648b6bd6?s=80",
  "project_id": 15,
  "project":{
    "id": 15,
    "name":"Diaspora",
    "description":"",
    "web_url":"http://example.com/mike/diaspora",
    "avatar_url":null,
    "git_ssh_url":"[email protected]:mike/diaspora.git",
    "git_http_url":"http://example.com/mike/diaspora.git",
    "namespace":"Mike",
    "visibility_level":0,
    "path_with_namespace":"mike/diaspora",
    "default_branch":"master",
    "homepage":"http://example.com/mike/diaspora",
    "url":"[email protected]:mike/diaspora.git",
    "ssh_url":"[email protected]:mike/diaspora.git",
    "http_url":"http://example.com/mike/diaspora.git"
  },
  "repository":{
    "name": "Diaspora",
    "url": "[email protected]:mike/diaspora.git",
    "description": "",
    "homepage": "http://example.com/mike/diaspora",
    "git_http_url":"http://example.com/mike/diaspora.git",
    "git_ssh_url":"[email protected]:mike/diaspora.git",
    "visibility_level":0
  },
  "commits": [
    {
      "id": "b6568db1bc1dcd7f8b4d5a946b0b91f9dacd7327",
      "message": "Update Catalan translation to e38cb41.",
      "timestamp": "2011-12-12T14:27:31+02:00",
      "url": "http://example.com/mike/diaspora/commit/b6568db1bc1dcd7f8b4d5a946b0b91f9dacd7327",
      "author": {
        "name": "Jordi Mallach",
        "email": "[email protected]"
      },
      "added": ["CHANGELOG"],
      "modified": ["app/controller/application.rb"],
      "removed": []
    },
    {
      "id": "da1560886d4f094c3e6c9ef40349f7d38b5d27d7",
      "message": "fixed readme",
      "timestamp": "2012-01-03T23:36:29+02:00",
      "url": "http://example.com/mike/diaspora/commit/da1560886d4f094c3e6c9ef40349f7d38b5d27d7",
      "author": {
        "name": "GitLab dev user",
        "email": "gitlabdev@dv6700.(none)"
      },
      "added": ["CHANGELOG"],
      "modified": ["app/controller/application.rb"],
      "removed": []
    }
  ],
  "total_commits_count": 4
}

You may not bind any field in the webhook payload to a Jenkins job parameter automatically. However, there is still a way to access webhook payload information in the Jenkins job. The Jenkins GitLab plugin makes this webhook payload information available in the Jenkins Global Variable env. The available env variables are as follows and they do include branch information:

gitlabBranch
gitlabSourceBranch
gitlabActionType
gitlabUserName
gitlabUserEmail
gitlabSourceRepoHomepage
gitlabSourceRepoName
gitlabSourceNamespace
gitlabSourceRepoURL
gitlabSourceRepoSshUrl
gitlabSourceRepoHttpUrl
gitlabMergeRequestTitle
gitlabMergeRequestDescription
gitlabMergeRequestId
gitlabMergeRequestIid
gitlabMergeRequestState
gitlabMergedByUser
gitlabMergeRequestAssignee
gitlabMergeRequestLastCommit
gitlabMergeRequestTargetProjectId
gitlabTargetBranch
gitlabTargetRepoName
gitlabTargetNamespace
gitlabTargetRepoSshUrl
gitlabTargetRepoHttpUrl
gitlabBefore
gitlabAfter
gitlabTriggerPhrase

Just as you would read Jenkins job parameters from Jenkins Global Variable params in your job pipeline script, you could read webhook payload fields from Jenkins Global Variable env:

params.MY_PARAM_NAME
env.gitlabBranch

Hope, the above information helps solve your problem.