How to force Jenkins to rebuild a branch?

Question

How do you force Jenkins and Git to rebuild a branch it thinks it has already built?

We have Jenkins and the Git plugin set up to build our repository branches and merge them back to our repo on any SCM change. But this means, naturally, that Jenkins will ONLY build on an SCM change.

For example, say you push branch A to your origin repo. Jenkins build fails because it depends on branch B which was not built and integrated yet. Jenkins builds branch B successfully, but now the only way to get it to build branch A again (which should now work) is to introduce an artificial change to branch A so that Jenkins will think it's "new".

Isn't there a better way to do this?

Answer 1

You can do that using Git Parameter Plugin. After installing this plugin you have to :

1. tranform your job to a Parametrized job
2. add a Git parameter named "branches",
3. select "Branch" for "Parameter Type" field
4. enter a regex that match all branches you want to watch

5. use the branches parameter into Git "branches to build" field

6. now when you launch your build you can select the branch to build