Primary error message is not shown in error header, instead says `error in 'error' step`

[justinmchase]

Feature Request

When I report an error like this in one of my steps:

stage ("Submodule Check") {
  steps {
    script {
      error "Submodules are OK for branches but cannot be merged into main"
    }
  }
}

This plugin does not report that error cleanly in the check. I expect it to show the message I reported more prominently but instead it shows information about the error step itself.

For example right in the Pull Request instead of showing that error message it simply says error in 'error' step:

Other github status checkers will show the actual error message in this part of the UI instead.

Additionaly when going to the error details it has the same message prominently in a header as well as some redundant information about an Error in the error step.

(red for bad, green for good)

I feel like in the case of reporting an error via the error() step / function, the information about that step should be omitted and the error message itself should be what is reported.

[justinmchase]

Also, the unstable step has the same issue:

Ideally it would show the actual message when in the unstable state as well.

[KalleOlaviNiemitalo]

The information about failing steps is formatted in FlowExecutionAnalyzer.java, so this issue belongs to jenkinsci/checks-api-plugin.

[KalleOlaviNiemitalo]

Thank you, @timja.

UnstableStep adds a WarningAction.

ErrorStep just throws an AbortException. I guess that is then translated to ErrorAction somewhere in workflow-cps-plugin.

[KalleOlaviNiemitalo]

Should the formatting just special-case flowNode.getDisplayFunctionName() equal to "error" and "unstable", or is there a better way to decide whether the name and arguments of the step are uninteresting?

[KalleOlaviNiemitalo]

isStageNode already hardcodes the "stage" name, so hardcoding "error" and "unstable" as well would be consistent with that.

I imagine changes:

• In getPotentialTitle, if flowNode is an "error" step, then get whereBuildFailed from the first line of ErrorAction.getDisplayName() instead of formatting.
• In processErrorOrWarningRow, if flowNode is an "error" or "unstable" step, and there is only one argument, and its value matches errorAction.getDisplayName() or warningAction.getMessage(), then omit the step name and arguments from the output. Thus, if the "unstable" step somehow throws an actual error, then the step name and arguments would still be included.