Where does a TeamCity build agent get its path environment from?

Question

I'm trying to set up TeamCity to build my project, but my psake buildscript fails, with the reason being narrowed down to its inability to find the git executable, which is supposed to be on the path. When I start a PowerShell and execute the thing by myself, everything works fine.

The content of the Path environment variable (as shown in the System variables list in the windows Environment Variables dialog, as well as the registry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager\Environment\Path) is

%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem;c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\binn\;c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\;c:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\;c:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\Binn\;c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\VSShell\Common7\IDE\;c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\Binn\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\cmd 

yet TeamCity says its env.Path is just

C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\binn\;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0 

I have restarted the computer (multiple times) which does not help whatsoever.

Why is the TeamCity build agent's PATH variable different from the system default, and how can I fix it?

Answer 1

I ran into this same issue and only needed to restart the Team City Build Agent Service to pick up changes to the PATH variable.

Answer 2

You can expand the path for a build agent by adding a build parameter named "env.PATH" with the following value on Mac OS and Linux.

%env.PATH%:/my/path 

On Windows use ";" instead of ":" as the path delimiter.

You can also add the following to conf/buildAgent.properties in your build agent installation directory.

env.PATH=%env.PATH%:/my/path 

(There is a comment at the bottom of the file that shows how to set environment vars.)