Using Global or Build-specific Variables

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Specifying Global, Build-specific or System Variables

When configuring a plan, you may want to specify variables to be used in the build process. There are three types of variables available to you:

• Global variables are defined across your entire Bamboo instance, and have the same (static) value for every plan that is built by Bamboo. You can define as many global variables as you wish (see Defining Global Variables).
• Build-specific variables are evaluated by Bamboo dynamically at build time. The source of a build-specific variable can either be a Bamboo property or one of the default plugins (assuming they have been enabled). The following build-specific variables are available by default:

  Build-specific variable	Source	Description
  buildKey	Bamboo property	The plan key for the build, e.g. BAM-MAIN
  buildNumber	Bamboo property	The Bamboo build number, e.g. 123
  buildPlanName	Bamboo property	The Bamboo plan name e.g. Some Project name - Some plan name
  buildTimeStamp	Bamboo property	The time when build was started in ISO 8601 format e.g. 2010-01-01T01:00:00.000+01:00
  buildForceCleanCheckout	Bamboo property	Whether the "Force Clean Build" option was used, values:true/false
  custom.svn.revision.number	Plugin	(For Subversion only) The revision number
  custom.svn.lastchange.revision.number	Plugin	(For Subversion only) The last changed revision number
  custom.svn.username	Plugin	(For Subversion only) User name used for repository authentication
  custom.cvs.last.update.time	Plugin	(For CVS only) The last updated timestamp
  custom.cvs.last.update.time.label	Plugin	(For CVS only) The last updated timestamp to be used as a label for post build result labelling. The spaces in the cvs version string are replaced with '_'
  custom.p4.revision.number	Plugin	(For Perforce only) The change set number
  custom.p4.username	Plugin	(For Perforce only) User name used for repository authentication
  custom.p4.port	Plugin	(For Perforce only) Port used for repository communication
  custom.p4.client	Plugin	(For Perforce only) Client used for repository communication

• System variables also apply across your entire Bamboo instance and inherit their values from system or environment variables of the same name.

The usage format for all global and build-specific variables is:

${bamboo.<variable>}

The usage format for all system variables is:

${system.<variable>}

e.g. if you have a system variable MYPATH=C:\MyPath; you can use a Bamboo system variable system.MYPATH which will inherit the same value as the system variable.

Where can I use Global, Build-specific or System Variables?

Variables can be used in the following fields of your build plan:

Maven example 

For example, you may want your Maven 2 version to be determined by Bamboo. In Maven 2 pom.xml you may have:

...
<groupId>com.atlassian.boo</groupId>
<artifactId>boo-test</artifactId>
<packaging>jar</packaging>
<version>1.1.${env.bambooBuildNumber}-SNAPSHOT</version>
...

You can then specify the following in the 'Goal' field of your build plan:

clean package -DbambooBuildNumber=${bamboo.buildNumber}

When the command runs, Bamboo will replace the buildNumber with the actual number (e.g. 1102), which will be passed to the underlying Maven build to use. The command will then produce a jar that looks like this: boo-test-1.1.1102-SNAPSHOT.jar.

Ant example

You can then specify the following in the 'Target' field of your build plan:

-f build.xml -DbambooBuildNumber=${bamboo.buildNumber}

When the command runs, Bamboo will replace the buildNumber with the actual number (e.g. 1102), which will be passed to the underlying Ant build to use.

Using Capabilities as Variables

You can also specify a capability to be used in a similar way to a global variable.

The format of the capability should be as follows:

${bamboo.capability.<capability_key>}

For example,

If you click on a capability, the specific capability key will be contained in the URL.

Please note, the space characters in the URL will be replaced with '+' characters. We recommend that you do not use capability labels with space characters, if you wish to use them as variables. A possible solution for space characters is to format them with '${}' symbols, however, this does not work in all cases.

What Capabilities Can I Use Where?

Global and Build-Specific Variables can be used in a specific fields of your build plan, as specified above. For capabilities,

• System Capabilities are available to all of these fields, (i.e. global and build-specific).
• Agent Capabilities (i.e. agent-specific and shared/server capabilities) are available only to the build-specific fields. (i.e. not available to Repository URL, CVS Root or Branch name.)

For example,