Job is failing because a parameter length exceeded

Last Reviewed:2025-02-25()
1 minute readKnowledge base

Issue

When using very large parameters in a given job, the builds fail throwing the following in the logs:

Caused by: hudson.plugins.git.GitException: Error performing git command: git $SOME_WORKSPACE_PATH
	at org.jenkinsci.plugins.gitclient.CliGitAPIImpl.launchCommandIn(CliGitAPIImpl.java:2748)
	at org.jenkinsci.plugins.gitclient.CliGitAPIImpl.launchCommandIn(CliGitAPIImpl.java:2662)
	at org.jenkinsci.plugins.gitclient.CliGitAPIImpl.launchCommandIn(CliGitAPIImpl.java:2658)
	at org.jenkinsci.plugins.gitclient.CliGitAPIImpl.launchCommand(CliGitAPIImpl.java:1981)
	at org.jenkinsci.plugins.gitclient.CliGitAPIImpl$5.execute(CliGitAPIImpl.java:1047)
	[...]
Caused by: java.io.IOException: Cannot run program "git" (in directory "$SOME_WORKSPACE_PATH"): error=7, Argument list too long
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Environment

Resolution

First of all, this is not an issue but a limitation, and it’s not a Jenkins limitation but a OS limitation as explained in https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/faq/coreutils-faq.html#Argument-list-too-long and https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/shell-experience/command-line-string-limitation.

This topic has been already raised by JENKINS-65958 (related to JENKINS-38576).

A redesign of your Pipeline will be required to have a shorter parameter list.

Tested product/plugin versions