TeamCity 7.0 Features Discussion: Agent Pools

Apart from maintaining 6.5.x branch and addressing critical issues there, we are preparing for a jump into 7.0 features and spend quite a time elaborating general directions and specific features. We will surely start presenting them within upcoming EAP releases.

There is one of the minor features I'd like to ask your feedback for at this time. It is a so-called Agent Pools: ability to manage assignment of build configurations to agents not only on agent level, but for a set of agents. This is necessary to reduce configuration effort.
Apparently, this is only an issue for installations with many agents, but we get a continuous flow of  related requests from many customers.

Current idea that we want to start with is:

Allow creating an "agent pool" that will hold a set of agents. Each agent can belong to a single pool only. There is a default pool of agents that all agents initially belong to.

A pool has a set of associated projects. This means:
a) the agent in the pool can only run the builds belonging to the associated projects;
b) the builds from the build configurations within the projects can only be built on the agents of the associated pools (a single project can be associated with several agent pools).

We will still preserve current ability to select build configurations that can be run on a specific agent.

Now the question for you: Does this approach sound like a major help in simplifying your agent management needs? Is restricting the granularity to project level is enough for your specific case?

Feel free to vote in the poll (to the right on the main blog page) or leave your comments.

TeamCity 6.5.1 Bugfix Update

A fresh update is available on the download page for those of you who've encountered critical issues with 6.5 update.
Changes are mostly bug fixes addressing issues that we've introduced while implementing new features in 6.5.

The database structure is the same as with 6.5 which means that you can downgrade to 6.5 if something goes wrong with 6.5.1.

TeamCity 6.5 is Here: New Features and Less Restrictive Free Edition

If you look through the What's New list of the release you are likely to see something useful for you.
We worked hard and we hope the release will make you a bit more happy with TeamCity and also with your builds.

The release both tweaks old things (like restyling web UI or renaming Responsibility into Investigation) and adds new strokes (like remote run on branches and test failures muting). These new directions are still to be fully explored and improved in the further releases based on your feedback.

Please make sure to look through the Upgrade Notes before you upgrade. It is recommended to test-drive the new version before upgrading your production TeamCity installation.

Our further plans are to start development of the next major version (TeamCity 7.0) and release updates to 6.5.x version with minor improvements and critical bug fixes if they surface.

TeamCity 6.5 RC: Days For the Official Release

Here is a build that is one tiny step before the official 6.5 release. It has just several bug fixes over the previous one and is meant to be the last chance to try a build before the release.

If you consider upgrading to 6.5, consider trying the build and warning us on any misbehavior found.

A hint: this build still has an EAP license bundled (valid for 30 days) so this can be yet another reason to download and try it :)

In the mean time we are starting to think what could we bring in TeamCity 7.0 and you might add your thoughts as well :)

TeamCity 6.5 Pre-Release: Less Restrictive Professional Edition and Stability Improvements

We are only  a small step away from 6.5 release and here is a build for you to try in your environment and let us know if anything goes wrong. The final 6.5 is planned to be released within a week or so.

Starting with this build we are dropping most limitations from Professional TeamCity edition except for the 20 build configurations limit. Now you can use per-project roles, any user authentication and more then 20 users in your TeamCity Professional installation.
As a professional user, you might be also interested in using more build configurations and here is a place to share your thoughts on this.


This build include a new way to install an agent onto a new machine: "agent push". Provided you have administrator credentials for a remote machine, you can now install a TeamCity agent on it right from "Agent Push" tab under Agents. The feature is in a bit "experimental" state, but we hope to improve it in further releases based on your feedback.

The build also further improves test muting and remote run on branches features as well as bundles PowerShell runner.

See more in the change log or full fixed issues list.

We ask you to try the build in your environment and let us know if anything goes wrong.

Get ready for the 6.5 release!

Responsibility Becomes Investigation. Are you an Investigator?

TeamCity has responsibility feature since the early days.

At first, it was introduced as an easy way to say to your buddy developers: "Hey, I've looked into the failure and I will try to fix it!". This was initially available only for build configurations but then was extended to individual test failures.

Then, we have got lots of request to allow assigning responsibility to other users. The reasoning is clear: I investigated a failure and figured out the dev who is to look into it. Now I want to ping him and let others know my findings right inside TeamCity UI.

But that is where social forces are brought into the play: we started to hear that many companies are not using "assign responsibility" because it sounds like blaming and the assigned party often gets a bit upset to say the least.


At that point we decided to rename responsibility into something other to reduce the "blame" impact. Choosing a good alternative took time and lots of considerations.
Finally, in 6.5 we are ready to introduce the renaming and are now using "investigation" instead of "responsibility".

One piece, though. How should we call a person who is investigating the failure?
Does "investigator" sounds right in the context? Should we stick with it or retreat to "assignee of the investigation"?
And we need your help here. Do you consider "investigator" a right term or not? Why?
Any alternatives you might suggest?

Please comment in the original issue or here.

Last EAP build before 6.5: Parametrized VCS roots, dotCover Add-in Integration and More

With current plans for 6.5 release in May we are publishing the latest additions to TeamCity and wait for your feedback. And there are lots to try and play with.

Parametrized VCS roots
You can now use %-references to TeamCity properties inside VCS roots. This opens a wide range of applications ranging from settings reuse between build configurations or builds in a chain to running a custom build specifying branch/tag on build start. Combined with ability to "publish" properties from a build and use them later via dep. references this unleashes power that is still to be understood.
Is your beloved case supported? Does it work as expected? Let us know!

Test muting improvements
We continue to improve test muting feature that allows to mark a test as not contributing to the build status.
Sounds interesting or scary?

Know your agents
If you ever wondered what agents have alike or differentiating environment, now you have a report to answer the question. Look under Agents / Parameters Report.
Did you manage to find something new about your agents?

And nobody should walk away empty-handed: there is a lot more in the build, including artifact dependencies on build tags and displaying failed tests grouped by package/namespace in UI.

See details in the change log or even dive deep into the fixed issues list.


Did I mention that your timely feedback is something that is really making TeamCity better?