Introduction

The mechanisms for configuring Buildbot build order is documented fairly well. However, what that documentation lacks is a centralized place where ordering is explained. My personal goal was to run smoke tests first and if those don’t pass then cancel all other build requests. That seemed straightforward, but turned out not to be so. There were many, many ways that could in theory be achieved, but most of those did not work at all, or worked only partially. This article attempts to fill the “how do I order builds in Buildbot” gap, including what can and can’t be achieved with each strategy.

Buildbot is a continuous integration framework which many open source projects seem to be using. Unlike continuous integration applications or automation servers like Jenkins Buildbot does not make many assumptions about your use-case. In fact, when you build your CI or CD pipeline you’re actually writing Python code and hence have all the flexibility of Python directly at your disposal. In other words, you’re not being blocked or obstructed by assumptions hidden in the tool itself, like often tends to happen with Jenkins.