TeamCity – Sharing Build Properties

Sharing parameters and properties can be a bit confusing for new users of TeamCity.  Lets use a simple example to illustrate how you can do this.

For sake of this explanation lets say that you have two build configurations that are essentially building the same thing but for different distribution uses, the source code is the same which would result in the same revision or commit of the source repository etc.  The only material difference is maybe some certificates or binary labels or identifiers.

Another scenario might be to integrate with an external system for deployment like Octopus Deploy and you want to kick that off in its own build configuration. Due to this you want the two build configurations to have the same build number.

Lets say you have an application called MyApp with a Debug, Release and Deploy build configurations and you want the Deploy configuration to use the Release build number.

So, to do this:

1. Navigate to the Release build configuration and note down the buildTypeId from the browser URL (for this example lets say this is webrelease).
2. Navigate to the Deploy build configuration
3. Click on Edit Configuration Settings, then Dependencies, then Add Snapshot Dependency
4. In the dialog that pops up select the check-box that corresponds to the Release build configuration and set any other relevant settings
5. You now have “linked” the two build configurations which means you can use the %dep.x% parameter notation
6. Now in the case to set the build number we navigate to the General Settings on the same Deploy build configuration
7. In the Build Number Format text box we can enter %dep.webrelease.build.number%

Voila!  The next execution of the Deploy build configuration will have the same build number as the Release configuration.  Go nuts with your params!