Some builds we have require several steps to complete. It would be nice if we could specify these in a single build configuration. These would be executed in ordered and ideally short-circuited.
Right now we have to either:
(1) Create a script that contains the multiple steps and call that from teamcity. This is bad though because we lose all the nice configuration ability of the build runner (system properties for instance are lost)
(2) Chain several build configurations together via dependencies. You can probably see why this is bad - you end up with a ton of build configurations and its confusing to the developers to have builds carved up into many pieces,
We will address some of the issues by composite build configurations that can group other configurations in it (e.g. see TW-2608 ). This is a more configurable and general way than your request.
However, it seems that implementing multiple runners in a single build configuration can be of some value too. Just to support some simple cases which does not need separate VCS/properties settings.
My feature request handles the more fine grained situation of multiple steps within a single build configuration. My problem with having a build configuration for every step of a build is that there are just too many build configurations floating around. The high number of build configurations is exacerbated by not having TW-3661 complete ;)
Probably we also need a good "steps" reporting for the builds with multiple runners: which steps failed and which not.
Thanks for keeping us updated.
Currently I am creating scripts to run multiple projects in succession and I would really like the ability to configure it directly in TeamCity.
As this feature is not a trivial one to implement, current plans are to include it into the next major release of TeamCity (most probably autumn 2010). However, EAP releases can have the feature available several months earlier.
Build steps are started as one build on one agent.