How to Update Jenkins Build Name and Description Using currentBuild Variables

Jenkins is a widely used CI tool that can also handle build and release automation. By default it sets the build name to the build number, which makes it hard to know which environment and server group a particular build was deployed to.

To make build information visible directly in the build list, you can update the currentBuild.displayName and currentBuild.description variables in your pipeline script. This allows the build number, target environment, server group, and artifact version to be shown without opening the job details.

pipeline {
    agent any

    parameters {
        choice choices: ['develop', 'test', 'stage', 'prod'], description: 'Select the target environment.', name: 'ENVIRONMENT_NAME'
        choice choices: ['ServerGroupA', 'ServerGroupB', 'ServerGroupC'], description: 'Select the target server group name.', name: 'SERVER_GROUP_NAME'
        string defaultValue: '1.0.0', description: 'Enter artifact version to be deployed', name: 'ARTIFACT_VERSION'
    }
    stages {
        stage('Initialization') {
            steps {
                echo 'Initializing'
                script {
                    currentBuild.displayName = "#${BUILD_NUMBER} - ${params.ENVIRONMENT_NAME} - ${params.SERVER_GROUP_NAME} - ${params.ARTIFACT_VERSION}"
                    currentBuild.description = "Deploying ${params.ARTIFACT_VERSION} to ${params.SERVER_GROUP_NAME} in ${params.ENVIRONMENT_NAME}"
                }
            }
        }
        stage('Download Artifacts') {
            steps {
                echo "Downloading ${params.ARTIFACT_VERSION} Artifacts"
            }
        }
        stage('Deploy Artifacts') {
            steps {
                echo "Deploying ${params.ARTIFACT_VERSION} Artifacts to ${params.SERVER_GROUP_NAME} in ${params.ENVIRONMENT_NAME}"
            }
        }
    }
}

The sample pipeline demonstrates how to define parameters for environment, server group, and artifact version, and then set the build’s display name and description accordingly. This makes it easy to identify the purpose of each build at a glance.

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