How to configure CI Build which runs at every hour

Question

Hi,

I have Created CI Build and it's working fine.
Now, I want to run CI Build at every hour whether checkin happens or not.

I tried to do with the trigger option but it's not working because I want to run CI Build at every hour.

Can anybody suggest me that how can i achieve this ?

Answer 1

Why do you want to build something that has no checkins?

Anyway, what you want is something that is not available out of the box. Ideas I have, is to create an application yourself that is scheduled. That application either checks in a dummy file each hour, or you (and that is a cleaner solution) queues a new build every hour.

In the latter solution, you just define in the trigger of the build, that it is manual. An example how to queue a build by code: http://www.woodwardweb.com/dotnet/tfs_build_api_b.html

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Ewald - Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help.


Blog: www.ewaldhofman.nl

Answer 2

If the build is not triggered by a checkin it is actually not a CI build. However, what you could do is create a build definition and set its trigger to "Check-ins do not trigger a new build". You can then use the Windows built in scheduler to trigger a build for that build definition every hour.

You'd have to run something like this:

"%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\TFSBuild.exe" start <server> <team project> <build definition>

if you have to pass arguments to the build you can use the /msBuildArguments switch.

Create a batch file with that line and pass it to a Windows scheduler task. In the advanced properties you can repeat the task every hour.