Having trouble customizing GitHub Checks page view

[grvvy]

Summary

I'm new to Jenkins/CI and web/REST development in general, but I set up a multibranch pipeline project and a basic GH app connected to cmee to handle my webhooks.

I then installed the Checks API plugin along with the GitHub Checks plugin and I'm successfully seeing some output in my Checks view on GitHub:

Since then I've skimmed some GH App documentation and watched the final demo video but I'm having trouble figuring out how to customize this view. I see the "Consume API - Create Checks" section but I'm not sure where that code implementation would even go.

Is there a way to view the code that is being run in the background that's giving me this default view after installing the app?.

I'm also not sure if that's totally necessary or if I'm missing something simple to achieve a nicer looking checks page like this one:

Some specific examples of the improvements I'd like to have from the second screenshot are: clickable build steps that display some build log info instead of plain bullet points outlining my pipeline stages.

Pipeline defined here

My only theory is that maybe it doesn't handle the fact that each stage simply runs a shell script and so the nice features of the second screenshot aren't working; but I'm also unsure if those are supposed to work by default right after installing the plugin.

Cheers!

[KalleOlaviNiemitalo]

The Markdown text for the checks report is generated by FlowExecutionAnalyzer in checks-api-plugin. If you want a different format, then it could be implemented in a few ways:

• Edit checks-api-plugin so that FlowExecutionAnalyzer formats the Markdown differently. I have a stalled PR Simplify status checks output for "error" and "unstable" steps checks-api-plugin#125 that changes it somewhat but doesn't add bullet points.
• Edit checks-api-plugin to make the Markdown formatting an extension point, and publish another plugin that formats it differently.
• Disable "status checks" in the project in Jenkins, and instead write a pipeline library to format the Markdown and use the publishChecks step to publish it to GitHub. This would be difficult to implement.

I'm not sure it would be possible for FlowExecutionAnalyzer to generate bullet points for pipeline stages or steps that haven't even started yet.

[grvvy]

Thanks for the response.

I don't necessarily want to add bullet points, but I in fact don't like that the view I'm getting has the non-expandable bullet points for my build stages instead of the expandable sections with highlighted build logs in the latter screenshot.

Is the checks view supposed to look more like the second screenshot by default?

[grvvy]

Ah, just realized that I'm comparing my Checks view with the Actions view of the other repo and that their "Jenkins" view under Checks does look similar to mine.

[grvvy]

Slightly related: If I'm looking to Consume the API to ie. add more checks as listed in the Consumer Guide, where does that java go? I haven't had to write any java up until now after having set up everything listed above so I'm a bit lost on that.

[KalleOlaviNiemitalo]

The Java code would go in a plugin for Jenkins. It may also be possible to use those APIs from Groovy but I think the security restrictions would then require placing the Groovy code in a global pipeline library rather than directly in Jenkinsfile.

For per-project use, the publishChecks step is available.

[grvvy]

Gotcha, so it seems like writing new java is more for building new plugins whereas pipeline configuration allows users to customize what additional information gets sent to the Checks view in github?

[grvvy]

Is there a way to view the pipeline or code responsible for producing this tests view and pipeline view for reference?

[KalleOlaviNiemitalo]

Those URLs starting with https://ci.jenkins.io/blue/ are handled by https://github.com/jenkinsci/blueocean-plugin, I believe. I don't know where exactly they are implemented in there. If you are planning to implement similar UI in a checks report published to GitHub, that may be difficult because GitHub is likely to have restrictions on the HTML elements that you can use there.

[grvvy]

Oh wow thank you! I'm not looking to implement it myself I was just searching for a better looking UI for when github contributors click details links on builds and wasn't sure what to look for.

[SaranshIam]

Hi @KalleOlaviNiemitalo

The Markdown text for the checks report is generated by FlowExecutionAnalyzer in checks-api-plugin. If you want a different format, then it could be implemented in a few ways:

• Edit checks-api-plugin so that FlowExecutionAnalyzer formats the Markdown differently. I have a stalled PR Simplify status checks output for "error" and "unstable" steps checks-api-plugin#125 that changes it somewhat but doesn't add bullet points.
• Edit checks-api-plugin to make the Markdown formatting an extension point, and publish another plugin that formats it differently.
• Disable "status checks" in the project in Jenkins, and instead write a pipeline library to format the Markdown and use the publishChecks step to publish it to GitHub. This would be difficult to implement.

I'm not sure it would be possible for FlowExecutionAnalyzer to generate bullet points for pipeline stages or steps that haven't even started yet.

Can you guide me on how should I display a table on the github checks page.
I can create a markdown shared lib. in my pipeline , but I am not sure how to display it on github checks page.

[KalleOlaviNiemitalo]

@SaranshIam, if you want to add a table to a check that Jenkins already publishes to GitHub, I think you need to edit the Java code in some plugin: github-checks, checks-api, or whatever plugin publishes the check to checks-api.

If you instead want to publish an entirely new check that includes a table, the publishChecks step will be the easiest way to do that from a pipeline.

[SaranshIam]

@KalleOlaviNiemitalo Thank You!
I am publishing entirely new checks , but I still do not understand how publishChecks will help me output it in a table format?
I mean which of the parameters that the plugin takes would help me to format output as a table?

[KalleOlaviNiemitalo]

The summary and text parameters of the publishChecks step support Markdown. I think you could input your table via one of those.

[SaranshIam]

Ok I will try this. Thanks a lot for all the help @KalleOlaviNiemitalo !!