Use TeamCity 9 REST API to turn on Versioned Settings

Question

I like to turn on Versioned Settings for my TeamCity projects, so that it commits its configuration in XML to the source control. However now I am seeking to do some automation around project creation leveraging the REST API. However, I can't figure out a way to turn on Versioned Settings via this API. Does anyone know how to do this? Is it supported?

Answer 1

This is not a direct and full answer yet, because it does not use the REST API, but this is an (admittedly hacky) way to accomplished the same thing in an automated way—and perhaps it will lead to a way to do it more properly through the API. Turns out that the file which stores this configuration is config\projects\<project-id>\pluginData\plugin-settings.xml under the TeamCity Data Directory. The documentation, under the section on Direct Modifications of Configuration Files says,

The files under the config directory can be edited manually (unless explicitly noted). The changes will be taken into account without the server restart. TeamCity monitors these files for changes and rereads them automatically when modifications or new files are detected. Bear in mind that it is easy to break the physical or logical structure of these files, so edit them with extreme caution. Always back up your data before making any changes.

Please note that the format of the files can change with newer TeamCity versions, so the files updating procedure might need adjustments after an upgrade.

I found that if I write this XML to said configuration file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<settings>
  <versionedSettings rootId="Bitbucket" enabled="true" showChanges="true" buildSettings="PREFER_VCS" />
</settings>

then it not only registered the setting, but actually went ahead and did the initial commit of the settings. That's a win, though I still wish I could do it through a more stable API. Note: this XML will be different depending on the precise setup of your version settings—this represents my preferred configuration.

If anyone knows how to take this to the next level by doing it through the API I would still appreciate it.

Answer 2

If it is an option to upgrade to TeamCity 10 (which it is for me), it appears that TeamCity 10 supports this though the REST API! I will confirm that it solved what I needed after doing the upgrade.