Nick Boldt recently posted about an addition to Hudson to make it show Red and Green for build status. The standard Hudson instance uses Blue to mean success which goes against the standard practice of Green for success. I asked Nick during a conversation if Hudson had some build tracking/trend metrics, and low and behold it does. In fact it simplifies reporting by making it a weather report.



This is a great way to see what the long term life of your builds has been. Is it raining cats and dogs, is it just misting a bit, or is Mr. Sun shining brightly on your builds? It's pretty easy to see the difference of your build status as well.


Stormy Build History: Adopters/Community may be hesitant to try it.



Partly Sunny Build History: Adopters/Community my be more willing to try it.

The other trend metric that I found of interest is the ability to see how much disk space and the size of the final product after each build.




It also tracks the trend of your unit tests. So, hopefully each build adds a few more unit tests.

These metrics and what they say about your build are a piece that your adopters and community need to know. It can help them decide whether they want to consume a particular projects builds early or late. If the builds are green more often than they are red, you may get more feedback sooner in your development cycle.