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<h2 class="chapter">1 Introduction</h2>
<p><a name="index-introduction-1"></a>
The BuildBot is a system to automate the compile/test cycle required by most
software projects to validate code changes. By automatically rebuilding and
testing the tree each time something has changed, build problems are
pinpointed quickly, before other developers are inconvenienced by the
failure. The guilty developer can be identified and harassed without human
intervention. By running the builds on a variety of platforms, developers
who do not have the facilities to test their changes everywhere before
checkin will at least know shortly afterwards whether they have broken the
build or not. Warning counts, lint checks, image size, compile time, and
other build parameters can be tracked over time, are more visible, and
are therefore easier to improve.
<p>The overall goal is to reduce tree breakage and provide a platform to
run tests or code-quality checks that are too annoying or pedantic for
any human to waste their time with. Developers get immediate (and
potentially public) feedback about their changes, encouraging them to
be more careful about testing before checkin.
<p>Features:
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<li>run builds on a variety of slave platforms
<li>arbitrary build process: handles projects using C, Python, whatever
<li>minimal host requirements: python and Twisted
<li>slaves can be behind a firewall if they can still do checkout
<li>status delivery through web page, email, IRC, other protocols
<li>track builds in progress, provide estimated completion time
<li>flexible configuration by subclassing generic build process classes
<li>debug tools to force a new build, submit fake Changes, query slave status
<li>released under the GPL
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<li><a accesskey="2" href="System-Architecture.html#System-Architecture">System Architecture</a>
<li><a accesskey="3" href="Control-Flow.html#Control-Flow">Control Flow</a>
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