Get Build Number with REST API

Article ID:360028147532
2 minute readKnowledge base

Issue

Using the REST API, how do I trigger a new build for a job, and get the build number for that new build?

Environment

Resolution

1. Modify JENKINS_URL, USER, and API_TOKEN in the following script to match your specific environment to start a non-parameterized build from a shell script:

#!/bin/bash
BUILD=$1
JENKINS_URL=https://jenkins.example.com
USER=admin
API_TOKEN=11605789ab3612a2193b982b07ed32468b

JENKINS_CRUMB=$(curl -q -u ${USER}:${API_TOKEN} "${JENKINS_URL}/crumbIssuer/api/xml?xpath=concat(//crumbRequestField,\":\",//crumb)")

curl -u ${USER}:${API_TOKEN} -H "${JENKINS_CRUMB}" -i -X POST ${JENKINS_URL}/job/${BUILD}/build

This will yield the following output:

  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100    46  100    46    0     0   5270      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--  5750
HTTP/1.1 201 Created
Date: Wed, 15 May 2019 15:52:26 GMT
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
Location: https://jenkins.example.com/queue/item/5/
Content-Length: 0
Server: Jetty(9.4.z-SNAPSHOT)
The queue URL (in this example https://jenkins.example.com:8080/queue/item/5/) will expire 5 minutes after the queue item is assigned a build number for the job so the URL will stay valid even if the build sits in the build queue for a long time.

2. Use curl to query api/ of the Location URL from Step 1 to get the build number

curl -u ${USER}:${API_TOKEN} -H "${JENKINS_CRUMB}" 'https://jenkins.example.com/queue/item/5/api/json?pretty=true'

This will yield the following output:

{
...
"executable" : {
"_class" : "hudson.model.FreeStyleBuild",
"number" : 5
"url" : "https://jenkins.example.com:8080/job/test/5/"
}

3. The URL (in this example https://jenkins.example.com:8080/job/test/5/) will be there once the queue item gets assigned a build number.