Post section (success, failure, always) in Jenkins - Commands & Configuration

Introduction

In Jenkins pipelines, you often want to run specific steps after your main tasks finish. The post section lets you do this based on whether the build succeeded, failed, or always runs regardless of the result.

When you want to send a notification only if the build succeeds.

When you need to clean up temporary files if the build fails.

When you want to always archive logs no matter the build result.

When you want to trigger another job only after a successful build.

When you want to send alerts or emails if the build fails.

Config File - Jenkinsfile

Jenkinsfile

pipeline {
  agent any
  stages {
    stage('Build') {
      steps {
        echo 'Building the project'
      }
    }
  }
  post {
    success {
      echo 'Build succeeded! Sending success notification.'
    }
    failure {
      echo 'Build failed! Sending failure alert.'
    }
    always {
      echo 'This always runs. Archiving logs.'
    }
  }
}

This Jenkinsfile defines a simple pipeline with one build stage.

The post section has three blocks:

• success: runs only if the build succeeds.
• failure: runs only if the build fails.
• always: runs no matter what happened in the build.

This helps you run cleanup, notifications, or other tasks based on build results.

Commands

This command updates the Jenkins pipeline job with the Jenkinsfile containing the post section. It applies the pipeline configuration to Jenkins.

Terminal

jenkins-jobs --conf jenkins.ini update Jenkinsfile

Expected Output

Job updated successfully

This command triggers the Jenkins pipeline job to run the build and post steps.

Terminal

jenkins-cli build my-pipeline-job

Expected Output

[Pipeline] Start of Pipeline

[Pipeline] echo

Building the project

[Pipeline] echo

Build succeeded! Sending success notification.

[Pipeline] echo

This always runs. Archiving logs.

[Pipeline] End of Pipeline

Finished: SUCCESS

This command triggers the pipeline but simulates a failure to show how the failure and always post blocks run.

Terminal

jenkins-cli build my-pipeline-job -p FORCE_FAIL=true

Expected Output

[Pipeline] Start of Pipeline

[Pipeline] echo

Build failed! Sending failure alert.

[Pipeline] echo

This always runs. Archiving logs.

[Pipeline] End of Pipeline

Finished: FAILURE

→

-p - Passes parameters to the build

Key Concept

The post section lets you run steps after the main pipeline, triggered only on success, failure, or always, to handle notifications and cleanup.

Common Mistakes

Putting post steps inside stages instead of the pipeline level

Post steps inside stages run only after that stage, not after the whole pipeline, causing unexpected behavior.

Place the post section at the pipeline level to run steps after the entire pipeline finishes.

Using post { always { ... } } but expecting it to run only on failure

The always block runs no matter what, so it will run on success and failure, which can cause duplicate notifications.

Use post { failure { ... } } for failure-only actions and post { always { ... } } for cleanup tasks.

Summary

Use the post section in Jenkinsfile to run steps after the pipeline finishes.

The success block runs only if the build succeeds.

The failure block runs only if the build fails.

The always block runs regardless of build result for cleanup or archiving.