TeamCity pass parameter from server to build agent

Question

I want to get commit count on build agent for manual versioning,

version = git rev-list --count "branchname"

git is not available on build agent because I have checkout "Automatically on server".

Is there a way to pass version from checkout server to build agent? (without changing VCS checkout mode to build agent)?

I'm running latest 9.1.6 version TC.

Answer 1

Is there a way to pass version from checkout server to build agent? (without changing VCS checkout mode to build agent)?

The short answer is that You cant do it.

What you can try and do is this:

- Add a version file to your repository,   
- **before** commiting use a git hook to update this file with the desired number
- Read the content of the file on your build server and you have it.

- Use a git hook to call a job on your build server which gets the 
  branch name and the number of commits and store it for later use somewhere

The main point is that since you cant do it you need to be little bit creative

---

Sample hook can be:

pre-receive hook

#!/bin/sh

branchName=$1

# Get the number of commits you need to store:
version = git rev-list --count $branchName

#############
# Now write the desired number to the desired file and let
# the build read it
#############

# Output colors
red='\033[0;31m';
green='\033[0;32m';
yellow='\033[0;33m';
default='\033[0;m';

# personal touch :-)
echo "${red}"
echo "                                         "
echo "                   |ZZzzz                "
echo "                   |                     "
echo "                   |                     "
echo "      |ZZzzz      /^\            |ZZzzz  "
echo "      |          |~~~|           |       "
echo "      |        |-     -|        / \      "
echo "     /^\       |[]+    |       |^^^|     "
echo "  |^^^^^^^|    |    +[]|       |   |     "
echo "  |    +[]|/\/\/\/\^/\/\/\/\/|^^^^^^^|   "
echo "  |+[]+   |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|    +[]|   "
echo "  |       |  []   /^\   []   |+[]+   |   "
echo "  |   +[]+|  []  || ||  []   |   +[]+|   "
echo "  |[]+    |      || ||       |[]+    |   "
echo "  |_______|------------------|_______|   "
echo "                                         "
echo "${default}"

# set the exit code to 0 so the push will occur
exit 0;

Answer 2

Basically, no, you cannot do what you want in a way you want it, you cannot just execute some command-line commands on the server when getting changes.

And why not just properly configure build number format and build counter and use them? It is also possible to set build number dynamically during a build.