How can I set Jenkins build description while triggering build via curl?

Question

I'm trying to set the build description of a build I'm triggering, as I'm kicking off the build, and I have no luck so far.

I came across a solution (Adding text to the page of a build triggered by the Jenkins remote API), and I kind of got it to work this way (first command will kick off the build, second one will set the description of the last build):

curl -v -X POST "http://[myServer]/job/[jobName]/build"
curl -v -X POST "http://[myServer]/job/[jobName/lastBuild/submitDescription" --data-urlencode "description=test description"

However, the problem is that if the build I just kicked off gets queued / doesn't kick of right away, "lastBuild" will not reference the build I just kicked off, but the one before it (that is still building).

So I tried something like this:

payload='json={""description"":""test description""}'
curl -v -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d $payload "http://[myServer]/job/[jobName]/build"

But it doesn't actually set the description.

Any ideas how this can be achieved?

Other solutions I found, but I'm not really happy with:

• Changing Jenkins Build Name & Description through API in JAVA - that's also a "post trigger solution" that won't work reliably same as just setting the description after
• Modifying Jenkins Description for a build - I guess I could build in a check, and only modify the description when it's empty so I don't override it, but that seems rather complicated. I'm thinking there must be an easier solution to this, no?

Answer 1

You can always have a variable and pass the build description into the variable on the initial invocation. Then at the end of your build, output the variable to console and catch with Description Setter plugin.

Edit to clarify:

• Install Description Setter plugin.
• In the Job Configuration, configure a String parameter, call it "MyDescription", leave defaults blank.
• Somewhere in the build steps, either "Execute Shell" or "Execute Windows Batch Command" type echo Desc: $MyDescription or echo Desc: %MyDescription%, depending on your OS.
• In the Post-Build steps, select "Set Build Description".
  • Set Regular expression as ^Desc: (.*)
  • Set Description as \1
• From command line trigger by:

curl -v -X POST --data-urlencode "MyDescription=This is my desc" "http://[myServer]/job/[jobName]/buildWithParameters"
(that above is one line)

Answer 2

I had the same need - set the build description as soon as the build starts.
Note that the Build Description Setter plugin is activated as a post-build action which is too late for me.
The way I solved it is by a minor change to the job configuration and a Python script (but can be in any language):

• Add a UUID parameter in the job configuration
• Created a script to submit & set description

The script does as follows:

1. When submitting a build, generate a uuid value (unique, right?) and populate the UUID parameter
2. Poll the Jenkins job (get its JSON via REST API), loop on all the running builds, find mine (via the known value of UUID). Limit the polling by a timeout, so we don't hang forever
3. Use the Jenkins Java CLI to set the description (command 'set-build-description')

Works all the time, except when the build is queued (no free executors are available) and the timeout set above expires - there's nothing I can do.