Issue

• How to make GitHub trigger Freestyle jobs or Pipelines in Jenkins.

Environment

Jenkins

• CloudBees Jenkins Enterprise - Managed Master (CJE-MM)
• CloudBees Jenkins Team (CJT)
• CloudBees Jenkins Platform - Client Master (CJP-CM)
• DEV@cloud (D@C)
• Jenkins LTS

Plugins

• GitHub plugin
• CloudBees GitHub Pull Request Builder plugin

Github

• GitHub
• GitHub Enterprise
• Github Webhook

Resolution

On Jenkins

A. Plugin Configuration

GitHub plugin as explained in GitHub Webhook configuration.

B. Job Configuration

In the Job configuration, one of the following Build Triggers needs to be selected :

• For Freestyle jobs
  • For PUSH events: GitHub hook trigger for GITScm polling (in the past named as Build when a change is pushed to GitHub) by GitHub plugin
    • For PULL REQUEST events: Build pull requests to the repository by CloudBees GitHub Pull Request Builder plugin
• For Pipeline jobs
  • Just PUSH events: GitHub hook trigger for GITScm polling (in the past named as Build when a change is pushed to GitHub) by GitHub plugin
    • JENKINS-35132
      • The job has to be executed manually one time in order for the push trigger and the git repo to be registered
        • Example of Jenkinsfile (Note that it includes GitHub hook trigger for GITScm polling enabled)

properties([pipelineTriggers([githubPush()])])

node {
    stage ('Checkout'){
        git branch: 'exampleBranch', url: 'https://github.com/example-org/example-repo.git'
    }
    stage ('Build'){
        // steps
    }
    stage ('Test'){
        // steps
    }
}    

Notes:
1. CloudBees GitHub Pull Request Builder plugin plugin requires Enable Git validated merge support enabled.
2. Both triggers can be selected together if it was needed in a Freestyle project. However Build pull requests to the repository trigger option is not available for Pipeline jobs. As a workaround, use Multibranch Pipeline and restrict the branch to build in Advanced options > Include branches to just the master (a Jenkinsfile in the master branch of the repo is needed).

IMPORTANT: If Manage hooks is enabled (Automatic mode) webhooks are generated after you Save the configuration of the job with the right triggers.

On GitHub

C. Validate GitHub WebHook

Make sure post-receive hooks has been created on GitHub at the Repository specify in the SCM configuration of the job as follows:

• <JENKINS_URL>/github-pull-request-hook/ for Pull request events.
• <JENKINS_URL>/github-webhook/ (push) for Push events.

Troubleshooting

If the post-receive hooks are not there, please review this Troubleshooting guide

Tested products/plugins version

The latest update of this article was tested with:

• CJP-CM 2.73.3.1
• GitHub plugin 1.27.0
• CloudBees Pull Request Builder for GitHub 1.11
• GitHub API v3