Jenkins Pipeline Wipe Out Workspace

We are running Jenkins 2.x and love the new Pipeline plugin. However, with so many branches in a repository, disk space fills up quickly.

Is there any plugin that's compatible with Pipeline that I can wipe out the workspace on a successful build?

Solution 1:

Like @gotgenes pointed out with Jenkins Version. 2.74, the below works, not sure since when, maybe if some one can edit and add the version above

cleanWs()

With, Jenkins Version 2.16 and the Workspace Cleanup Plugin, that I have, I use

step([$class: 'WsCleanup'])

to delete the workspace.

You can view it by going to

JENKINS_URL/job/<any Pipeline project>/pipeline-syntax

Then selecting "step: General Build Step" from Sample step and then selecting "Delete workspace when build is done" from Build step

Solution 2:

You can use deleteDir() as the last step of the pipeline Jenkinsfile (assuming you didn't change the working directory).

Solution 3:

The mentioned solutions deleteDir() and cleanWs() (if using the workspace cleanup plugin) both work, but the recommendation to use it in an extra build step is usually not the desired solution. If the build fails and the pipeline is aborted, this cleanup-stage is never reached and therefore the workspace is not cleaned on failed builds.

=> In most cases you should probably put it in a post-built-step condition like always:

pipeline {
    agent any
    stages {
        stage('Example') {
            steps {
                echo 'Hello World'
            }
        }
    }
    post { 
        always { 
            cleanWs()
        }
    }
}

Solution 4:

In fact the deleteDir function recursively deletes the current directory and its contents. Symbolic links and junctions will not be followed but will be removed.

To delete a specific directory of a workspace wrap the deleteDir step in a dir step.

dir('directoryToDelete') {
    deleteDir()
}

Solution 5:

I used deleteDir() as follows:

  post {
        always {
            deleteDir() /* clean up our workspace */
        }
    }

However, I then had to also run a Success or Failure AFTER always but you cannot order the post conditions. The current order is always, changed, aborted, failure, success and then unstable.

However, there is a very useful post condition, cleanup which always runs last, see https://jenkins.io/doc/book/pipeline/syntax/

So in the end my post was as follows :

post {
    always {

    }
    success{

    }
    failure {

    }
    cleanup{
        deleteDir()
    }
}

Hopefully this may be helpful for some corner cases