Jenkins and the Case of the Missing Body

I was repeatedly seeing this: -

java.lang.IllegalStateException: There is no body to invoke

with a Jenkins Pipeline that I was executing; this Pipeline executes whenever one commits new code into a GitHub Enterprise (GHE) repository, with a Pull Request.

To debug this further, I created a dummy GHE repository with a corresponding Jenkinsfile, and a new Jenkins pipeline.

This allowed me to hack iterate the code in the GHE web UI, and immediately test the Pipeline within Jenkins itself.

Without wishing to give away the plot, I'll TL;DR; and say that the problem was ME ( quelle surprise ).

Here's my initial Jenkinsfile: -

timestamps
{
    node('linuxboxen')
    checkout scm
    def givenName = "Dave"
    def familyName = "Hay"
    
    withEnv(["GIVEN_NAME=${givenName}", "FAMILY_NAME=${familyName}"])
    {
        stage('JFDI')
        {
            sh '''#!/bin/bash
            echo "Doing it"
            echo $GIVEN_NAME
            echo $FAMILY_NAME
            '''
        }
    }
}

Can you see the problem ?

It took me a while ....

The node directive is NOT followed by a set of braces, meaning that nothing actually gets done, hence the exception.

The code SHOULD look like this: -

timestamps

{

    node('linuxboxen')

    {

        checkout scm

        def givenName = "Dave"

        def familyName = "Hay"

    

        withEnv(["GIVEN_NAME=${givenName}", "FAMILY_NAME=${familyName}"])

        {

            stage('JFDI')

            {

                sh '''#!/bin/bash

                echo "Doing it"

                echo $GIVEN_NAME

                echo $FAMILY_NAME

                '''

            }

        }

    }

}

In other words, the node() directive needs something to do, hence the need for the braces, which can contain one or more stages(), plus associated directives.

Nice :-)