How to get the BUILD_USER in Jenkins when job triggered by timer?

I wanted to show the user who triggered a Jenkins job in the post job email. This is possible by using the plugin Build User Vars Plugin and the env variable BUILD_USER. But this variable do not get initialized when the job is triggered by a scheduler.

How can we achieve this? I know we have a plugin called - EnvInject Plugin, and that can be used...

But I just want to know how we can use this and achieve the solution...

18 Answers

SIMPLE SOLUTIONS (NO PLUGINS) !!

METHOD 1: Via Shell

BUILD_TRIGGER_BY=$(curl -k --silent ${BUILD_URL}/api/xml | tr '<' '\n' | egrep '^userId>|^userName>' | sed 's/.*>//g' | sed -e '1s/$/ \//g' | tr '\n' ' ') echo "BUILD_TRIGGER_BY: ${BUILD_TRIGGER_BY}" 

METHOD 2: Via Groovy

node('master') { BUILD_TRIGGER_BY = sh ( script: "BUILD_BY=\$(curl -k --silent ${BUILD_URL}/api/xml | tr '<' '\n' | egrep '^userId>|^userName>' | sed 's/.*>//g' | sed -e '1s/\$/ \\/ /g'); if [[ -z \${BUILD_BY} ]]; then BUILD_BY=\$(curl -k --silent ${BUILD_URL}/api/xml | tr '<' '\n' | grep '^shortDescription>' | sed 's/.*user //g;s/.*by //g'); fi; echo \${BUILD_BY}", returnStdout: true ).trim() echo "BUILD_TRIGGER_BY: ${BUILD_TRIGGER_BY}" } 

METHOD 3: Via Groovy

BUILD_TRIGGER_BY = currentBuild.getBuildCauses()[0].shortDescription + " / " + currentBuild.getBuildCauses()[0].userId echo "BUILD_TRIGGER_BY: ${BUILD_TRIGGER_BY}" 

OUTPUT:

Started by user Admin / [email protected] 

Note: Output will be both User ID and User Name

Build user vars plugin wasn't working for me so I did a quick-and-dirty hack:

BUILD_CAUSE_JSON=$(curl --silent ${BUILD_URL}/api/json | tr "{}" "\n" | grep "Started by") BUILD_USER_ID=$(echo $BUILD_CAUSE_JSON | tr "," "\n" | grep "userId" | awk -F\" '{print $4}') BUILD_USER_NAME=$(echo $BUILD_CAUSE_JSON | tr "," "\n" | grep "userName" | awk -F\" '{print $4}') 

This can be done using the Jenkins Build User Vars Plugin which exposes a set of environment variables, including the user who started the build. It gives environment variables like BUILD_USER_ID, EMAIL, etc.

When the build is triggered manually by a logged-in user, that user's userid is available in the BUILD_USER_ID environment variable.

However, this environment variable won't be replaced / initialized when the build is automatically triggered by a Jenkins timer / scheduler.

Attached a screenshot for details

This can be resolved by injecting a condition to the Job by using Conditional Build Step Plugin / Run Condition Plugin,where in to each job we can add a condition to initialize the variable BUILD_USER_ID only when the build is caused or triggered by the Timer or scheduler, by setting a condition using the regular expression..

Without Plugin ->

def cause = currentBuild.getBuildCauses('hudson.model.Cause$UserIdCause') echo "userName: ${cause.userName}" 

Install 'Build User Vars Plugin' and use like below:- [ See ]

Be sure to check mark the Set jenkins user build variables checkbox under Build Environment for your Jenkins job's configuration.

I found similar but really working on Jenkins 2.1.x and easy for my understanding way. And it works without any plugins.

if (currentBuild.getBuildCauses('hudson.model.Cause$UserIdCause')['userId']){ // Will be run only if someone user triggers build // Because in other cases this contructions returns null } 

You can use in this construction any classes described here. They will be returns maps with usable values.

This gets the username who clicked "Build Now" in a Jenkins pipeline job.

@NonCPS def getBuildUser() { return currentBuild.rawBuild.getCause(Cause.UserIdCause).getUserId() } 

I'm using a combination of the 'Execute Shell' and 'Env Inject' plugin as follows:

1. Create an 'Execute Shell' build step that uses shell parameter substitution to write default the value and echo that value into a file. Example highlighted in screen shot below.
2. Use the 'Env Inject' file to read that file as properties to set.

The token $BUILD_CAUSE from the email-ext plugin is what you are looking for.

You can see the full content token reference when you click the ? just after the Attach build log combobox at the email content configuration.

Some tokens get added by plugins, but this one should be aviable by default.

Edit: As pointed out by bishop in the comments, when using the EnvInject plugin, the $BUILD_CAUSE token gets changed to behave differently.

I have written a groovy script to extract the started by which would correctly get the source, regardless if user, scm or timer (could add more). It would recursively navigate the build tree to get the "original" 'started by' cause

I wanted to trigger build initiator info to one of my slack/flock group so I used following way to get build initiator email and name by writing in Declarative fashion .

I am just printing here, you can use to store in some environment variable or write in one file giving file path according to your own convenience..

pipeline { environment { BRANCH_NAME = "${env.BRANCH_NAME}" } agent any stages{ stage('Build-Initiator-Info'){ sh 'echo $(git show -s --pretty=%ae)' sh 'echo $(git show -s --pretty=%an)' } } } 

Just to elaborate on Musaffir Lp's answer. The Conditional Build Step plugin now supports the Build Cause directly - it requires the Run Condition Plugin also.

If you wanted to detect when the build was started by a timer you can select a Run? value of Build Cause, with Build Cause of: TimerTrigger

This is a little simpler and more robust than using a regex. There are also other triggers you can detect, for example when the build was a result of Source Control Management commit, you can select: SCMTrigger.

This below is working for me.

Install "user build vars plugin"

Build Name = ${BUILD_NUMBER}_${TICKET}_${ENV,var="BUILD_USER_ID"} 

I created a function that return the Triggered Job Name:

String getTriggeredJob(CURRENT_BUILD) { if (CURRENT_BUILD.upstreamBuilds.size() > 0) { TRIGGERED_JOB = CURRENT_BUILD.upstreamBuilds[0].projectName if (!TRIGGERED_JOB.isEmpty()) { return TRIGGERED_JOB } } return "Self" } 

CURRENT_BUILD is env var currentBuild

How to return Username & UserId:

UserName: currentBuild.rawBuild.getCause(Cause.UserIdCause).getUserName()

UserId: currentBuild.rawBuild.getCause(Cause.UserIdCause).getUserId()

There is other way to get user_id, where you don't need to install anything.

BUILD_USER_ID = sh ( script: 'id -u', returnStdout: true ).trim() echo "bUILD USER: ${BUILD_USER_ID }" 

Get the current User name from the Jenkins pipeline script:

 wrap([$class: 'BuildUser']) { echo "BUILD_USER that started this Pipeline: ${BUILD_USER}" } 

Output: BUILD_USER that started this Pipeline: USERNAME

Is this helpful?

For declarative pipeline syntax, here is a quick hack, base on @Kevin answer. For declarative pipeline you need to enclose them in a node, else you will get an error/ build failure

node { def BUILD_FULL = sh ( script: 'curl --silent '+buildURL+' | tr "{}" "\\n" | grep -Po \'"shortDescription":.*?[^\\\\]"\' | cut -d ":" -f2', returnStdout: true ) slackSend channel: '#ci-cd', color: '#000000', message: "The pipeline was ${BUILD_FULL} ${GIT_COMMIT_MSG} " } 

The output will be slack notification sent to your slack channel with the git short description