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?

TeamCity 6.0.3 Bugfix Update

The official download page has been updated to let you download 6.0.3 release with latest fixes for the stable TeamCity release.

Update is recommended for all users. Especially if you are using Perforce agent-side checkout, Maven or XML report import.

You can review the full list of fixed issues in our tracker.

Thank you all who reported issues against TeamCity 6.0 so we have ability to provide fixes for everyone.

In this particular update we introduced no new data convertors, so you can downgrade from 6.0.3 to any of 6.0.x versions just reinstalling/replacing TeamCity binaries and pointing them to the same .BuildServer directory.

In case you are a bit tired with a stable version and interested in what is coming in TeamCity 6.5, consider test driving our EAP.

TeamCity 6.5 EAP (build 17372): Mute Tests, AssemblyInfo Version Patcher, MSpec and More

Here is a new EAP build for the upcoming 6.5 release. The major additions include:

• Ability to mute tests. You can mute tests whenever you see a test name in TeamCity UI. The muted test still runs in a build, but it's failure does not paint the build red. Still to go is ability to automatically unmute the test after specified time or on successful test pass.
• Tests grouping. Failed tests are now grouped by package in most lists.
• .Net AssemblyInfo version injection. Need to add a version for your .Net assembly? Add corresponding build feature to scan the sources for AssemblyInfo files and inject build number into them before the build.
• MSpec support. You can now natively run MSpec tests in TeamCity, coverage support included.

For more detailed description see the release notes and full list of fixed issues.

As usual, we are waiting for your feedback on the new additions in this build so that we can adjust our development efforts for 6.5

TeamCity 6.5 EAP is Open

We have branched our sources for 6.x just after release of 6.0, so we are working on new features for more then 2 months already, just integrating critical fixes into 6.0.x branch (that we release bugfix updates from).

During this time we started several new features some of which we are ready to announce today in the scope of the first EAP build. The main purpose is to let you know what we are working on and allow you to provide feedback early in the development.

We use fresh builds on our internal production server for several weeks already, so it should not have huge issues. However, there surely can be problems, so please use the build with usual precautions for trying preview software.

The first thing you notice physically about this lady build is a new color scheme and more lightweight style. I already leaked a screenshot  back at RC times but now you can try it live for yourself. Love or hate it? Let us know.

Another important addition is preview of the feature to run a personal build in TeamCity for Git and Mercurial by pushing private branches to the server. This is the first time we introduce "branch" notion into TeamCity and it will probably develop into many more features in the future.

For other additions, please see the release notes or the full fixed issues list.

A note for planing your upgrades: we want to release TeamCity 6.5 sometime at the end of the spring.

Stay tuned to be the first to try the new features in the following EAP releases. You can not only try but influence them.

So start with this build: get, test-drive, let us know!

TeamCity 6.0.2 BugFix Update

We just uploaded TeamCity 6.0.2 which is a bugfix update for 6.0.

The release contains various fixes and performance improvements throughout the system.
See the list of fixed issues.

As you've probably noticed this blog missed announcement on TeamCity 6.0.1 release that came out in the last days of year 2010. Sorry for that. I was in the middle of moving from Saint-Petersburg to Munich and dropped off the work for some time.
And yes, JetBrains opened a new development office in Germany, so part of TeamCity team in now working from Munich. But that's a different story :)

Plugin Initiatives

After 6.0 release we've got some a bit relaxed time and while we were discussing future plans in a set of meetings we also decided to announce internal "write your own whatever you like plugin" time.

Not all team members were participating as some had urgent tasks, but we've got some new plugins rolling.
Some of them are early prototypes not ready for any public preview and some are mature enough to be called beta versions :)

Here is the list of final entrants that we had demoed today:
- day/week changes commit time visualizer (aka PunchCard)
- PowerShell runner
- Meta runner (make a new runner out of existing one allowing to customize only fixed set of options)
- customized agent lists with selected properties displayed (aka Custom Tables)
- display notifications from administrator to all TeamCity users in web UI
- Android runner
- Eclipse PDE build runner
- Scripted properties: extensible way to provide generated values to TeamCity build properties (build start time, value from a Windows registry on agent, values from TeamCity object model)

- OpenId authentication support
- trigger a build on HTTP URL resource change
- expose server model to Flex code (current usage is to draw Build Configuration dependencies graph)

Several of the plugins are already published with sources publicly available, several more will probably follow.

If you are interested in any of the mentioned topics, let us know.

I'll update this post with links to the plugin details, when available.

Do you have your plugin for TeamCity? Care to share one?

Winter and TeamCity 6.0 Have Just Arrived

TeamCity build #15772 is named official 6.0 release and is already sitting in the downloads waiting to be installed on your servers.

What's New pretty much summarizes the major improvements over the previous releases.

We've added lots of new features and started exploring some of the new ones that we will be improving in the following releases. And we need your feedback for the right direction of the improvements. If you love the feature and want just a small improvement or find it unusable - don't forget to let us know.

I will note several not so prominent additions to this release, that can still deserve your attention.
These are mainly of interest to build engineers and TeamCity administrators:

• Property completion lists (those available via an icon in text fields) now list properties that come from agents: you no longer need to consult agent pages when referencing a property. In the same mood, defining agent requirements dialog is now aware of available agent properties and their values.
• Schedule build trigger got an option not to trigger if only specific changes are pending.
• Snapshot dependencies can now enforce a build to be run on the same agent as the one it depends from.
• Server Diagnostics got presets for debug logging, so for basic debugging tasks you no longer need to go hack log4j config file.

If you are interested in specific issues, you can browse all 6.0 fixed issues in our YouTrack installation. Are there any filed or voted by you? (Just add "created by:me" or "voted by:me" to the query string while being logged in.) My score is 259. What is yours?

Ready to go? Do not forget to review the upgrade notes before performing the upgrade.