Dedicated build workspaces

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You can use dedicated build workspaces to identify changes and work items that go into a build, and to create snapshots of the build source content.

When you set up the build workspace for a build definition, consider the following items:

  • Use a separate build workspace and do not point to the stream directly. This practice ensures that the build is isolated from ongoing changes in the stream. The stream contents can be deleted if the Accept changes before loading option is selected and the stream has a flow target.
  • Ensure that each build definition has a dedicated build workspace. If build workspaces are shared across definitions, the audit history of snapshots becomes mixed. The Included in Builds link on work items might not be accurate. Work item links are derived from the change sets that are accepted into the build workspace, but if the workspace is shared, a different build might have accepted certain change sets already, so links for these are not created in the new build. For more information, see How should my source code be loaded from Jazz SCM on Jazz.net.
  • Set the build user as the workspace owner.
  • When your build definition specifies a build repository workspace, the Jazz® Build Engine, which is connected to the Jazz repository, uses this repository workspace to identify the content to build. The build engine accepts any incoming changes from the team's stream and then loads the repository workspace content into the local file system for processing.
  • You can add a Engineering Workflow Management source control pre-build step to a build to fetch files from a Jazz repository workspace or stream. The source control step adds a page to the build definition so that you can configure how to fetch the files.
  • You can create read-only source control builds, which fetch files from a stream. These builds are not auditable because they do not record the set of files that were built, but are useful for continuous builds.
  • The snapshot and baselines that the build creates are private to the build workspace. To make the snapshot and baselines public, you can deliver and rename them to a stream to make them easier for team members to find.
  • If you already have a build script and do not want to migrate to a Engineering Workflow Management source control build, you can use the fetch Ant task to fetch code from the Jazz repository from within your script. For more information, see teamFetch.