Shells and commands in build environments - AWS CodeBuild

Shells and commands in build environments

You provide a set of commands for AWS CodeBuild to run in a build environment during the lifecycle of a build (for example, installing build dependencies and testing and compiling your source code). There are several ways to specify these commands:

  • Create a build specification file and include it with your source code. In this file, specify the commands you want to run in each phase of the build lifecycle. For more information, see the Build specification reference for CodeBuild.

  • Use the CodeBuild console to create a build project. In Insert build commands, for Build commands, enter the commands you want to run in the build phase. For more information, see Create a build project (console).

  • Use the CodeBuild console to change the settings of a build project. In Insert build commands, for Build commands, enter the commands you want to run in the build phase. For more information, see Change a build project's settings (console).

  • Use the AWS CLI or AWS SDKs to create a build project or change the settings of a build project. Reference the source code that contains a buildspec file with your commands, or specify a single string that includes the contents of an equivalent buildspec file. For more information, see Create a build project or Change build project settings.

  • Use the AWS CLI or AWS SDKs to start a build, specifying a buildspec file or a single string that includes the contents of an equivalent buildspec file. For more information, see the description for the buildspecOverride value in Run builds manually.

You can specify any Shell Command Language (sh) command. In buildspec version 0.1, CodeBuild runs each Shell command in a separate instance in the build environment. This means that each command runs in isolation from all other commands. Therefore, by default, you cannot run a single command that relies on the state of any previous commands (for example, changing directories or setting environment variables). To get around this limitation, we recommend that you use version 0.2, which solves this issue. If you must use version 0.1, we recommend the following approaches:

  • Include a shell script in your source code that contains the commands you want to run in a single instance of the default shell. For example, you could include a file named my-script.sh in your source code that contains commands such as cd MyDir; mkdir -p mySubDir; cd mySubDir; pwd;. Then, in your buildspec file, specify the command ./my-script.sh.

  • In your buildspec file or on the Build commands setting for the build phase only, enter a single command that includes all of the commands you want to run in a single instance of the default shell (for example, cd MyDir && mkdir -p mySubDir && cd mySubDir && pwd).

If CodeBuild encounters an error, the error might be more difficult to troubleshoot compared to running a single command in its own instance of the default shell.

Commands that are run in a Windows Server Core image use the PowerShell shell.