Adding CC Functionality to Hudson's Email Extension Plugin

Exploring Advanced Email Features in Hudson's Plugin System

The ability to contact team members with build status updates is essential for managing continuous integration and delivery pipelines. An Email Extension plugin from the well-known automation server Hudson greatly improves this feature. At first, this plugin offers a simple way to send alerts to a list of recipients that you provide in the 'TO' box. Modern development techniques, however, demand more advanced email functions, like the capacity to add extra stakeholders to the Carbon Copy ('CC') field in order to ensure wider communication without being directly involved in the main debate.

This need has prompted questions about adding 'CC' options to the Email Extension plugin's functionality, which would allow development teams to communicate more effectively. Project participants can share information more efficiently and systematically by adhering to standard email correspondence protocols and streamlining the notification process by using 'CC' functions. This section will address the common difficulty of improving email communication in continuous integration processes by delving into potential solutions and offering sample code to create 'CC' features within the Hudson Email Extension plugin.

Improving Hudson's Email Functionality with the CC Feature

The scripts offered are intended to add CC (Carbon Copy) functionality, which is not by default available, to the Hudson Email Extension Plugin. The Java example shows how to create a custom Jenkins plugin component, while the Groovy script shows how to use Jenkins' scripting features to directly modify the email sending process. To create and send emails, the Groovy script makes use of a number of imports from the JavaX Mail API and the Jenkins API. The'sendEmailWithCC' method, which creates an email with the TO and CC recipients, subject, and HTML body, is the central component of this script. This function uses 'InternetAddress.parse' to parse email addresses from a string and then uses the 'MimeMessage' class to set the email's properties, including recipients in the TO and CC fields. The email is subsequently sent via the 'Transport.send' method, which genuinely delivers it to the designated recipients. With this method, you can quickly add CC capabilities to Hudson's email notifications without having to make any changes to the plugin's current codebase.

The Java script demonstrates how to make a custom build step in Hudson that allows email notifications with CC, with the intention of assisting plugin developers. The 'ExtendedEmailBuilder' class is defined first, expanding upon Hudson's 'Builder' class to allow it to execute commands throughout the build process. To indicate constructors that Jenkins will call when instantiating this class from form or query parameters, key annotations such as '@DataBoundConstructor' are used. This allows users to enter the subject, body, and email addresses of the sender and recipient using the Jenkins user interface. The logic to be carried out during the construction is contained in the overridden 'perform' function from the 'Builder' class. This method would usually involve calls to Jenkins' Mailer class or directly use Java Mail APIs similar to the Groovy example, albeit the actual email sending mechanism is not explained in detail. This shows how to enhance Jenkins' functionalities in a more complicated and integrated way, providing a seamless experience for customers requiring advanced email features like CC in their processes.

import hudson.tasks.Mailer
import javax.mail.Message
import javax.mail.MessagingException
import javax.mail.Session
import javax.mail.internet.InternetAddress
import javax.mail.internet.MimeMessage
string to, string cc, string topic, string body; def sendEmailWithCC {
    def hudsonInstance = Jenkins.getInstance()
    def mailerDescriptor = hudsonInstance.getDescriptorByType(Mailer.DescriptorImpl.class)
    def smtpHost = mailerDescriptor.getSmtpServer()
    def session = Session.getDefaultInstance(System.getProperties(), null)
    def message = new MimeMessage(session)
    message.setFrom(new InternetAddress(mailerDescriptor.getAdminAddress()))
    message.setRecipients(Message.RecipientType.TO, InternetAddress.parse(to))
    message.setRecipients(Message.RecipientType.CC, InternetAddress.parse(cc))
    message.setSubject(subject)
    message.setContent(body, "text/html")
    Transport.send(message)
}
// Example usage:
// sendEmailWithCC('xxx@email.com', 'yyy@email.com', 'Your Subject Here', readFile("${workspace}/email.html"))

package org.jenkinsci.plugins.emailext;
import hudson.Extension;
import hudson.Launcher;
import hudson.model.AbstractBuild;
import hudson.model.BuildListener;
import hudson.tasks.Builder;
import hudson.tasks.Mailer;
import org.kohsuke.stapler.DataBoundConstructor;
public class ExtendedEmailBuilder extends Builder {
    private final String recipientsTO;
    private final String recipientsCC;
    private final String emailSubject;
    private final String emailBody;
    @DataBoundConstructor
    public ExtendedEmailBuilder(String recipientsTO, String recipientsCC, String emailSubject, String emailBody) {
        this.recipientsTO = recipientsTO;
        this.recipientsCC = recipientsCC;
        this.emailSubject = emailSubject;
        this.emailBody = emailBody;
    }
    @Override
    public boolean perform(BuildListener listener, Launcher launcher, AbstractBuild<?,?> build) {
        // Implementation of email sending logic here
        return true;
    }
}

Expanding the Email Functionality of Hudson to Enhance Workflow Communication

Effective communication channels play a critical role in software development and continuous integration since they facilitate team cooperation and enable timely project status updates. This ecosystem relies heavily on Hudson's Email Extension Plugin, which makes automatic email notifications possible. But sending emails to the contacts listed in the 'TO' column is limited, which can be problematic, particularly when more extensive communication is required. This gap is filled by the provision of Carbon Copy (CC) capabilities, which allows developers to add more stakeholders to the email chain without designating them as key receivers. This update not only expands the scope of team communications but also conforms to conventional email protocols, guaranteeing that all pertinent stakeholders are kept up to date on build status, significant issues, and development cycle milestones.

Hudson's email notifications now include CC options, enabling more adaptable and inclusive communication tactics. It allows beneficiaries to be categorized, for example, according to their responsibilities or level of project involvement. The 'TO' field can contain primary players like developers and project managers, but other stakeholders like design teams, QA engineers, and senior management can be CC'ed. By doing this, it is made sure that they receive information without being the main subject of the communication and are kept informed. By putting such a feature into place, projects become more transparent and the workflow becomes more efficient and well-organized, with everyone receiving the information that is most pertinent to their jobs.