Notifications

1. Go to Administration → Email Notifier.
2. Fill in SMTP settings:

Click Test connection — TeamCity sends a test email to the admin address. Verify it arrives before saving.

Notification rules define WHO gets notified WHEN. They can be set at the user level (My Settings & Tools → Notification Rules) or at the group level.

Available notification events

Setting user notification rules

1. Go to My Settings & Tools (top right) → Notification Rules.
2. Click Add new rule.
3. Choose the notifier type (Email, IDE, etc.).
4. Scope: specific build configurations, all configs in a project, or all watched configs.
5. Events: check the events to notify on.
6. Branch filter (optional): only notify for failures on specific branches.

Group-level rules are useful for ensuring the whole team gets notified of main branch failures without requiring every developer to configure their own rules. Go to Administration → User Groups → <Group> → Notification Rules.

In a notification rule, add a branch filter to limit notifications to specific branches. Same +/- syntax as VCS Root branch specs:

# Notify only for main and release branches
+:refs/heads/main
+:refs/heads/release/*

# Notify for everything except feature branches
+:refs/heads/*
-:refs/heads/feature/*

TeamCity's email notification content is defined by Freemarker templates stored in the data directory at <Data Dir>/config/notification/email/. You can customise the subject and body.

# Default template location:
<TC Installation>/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/BSPTags/email/*.ftl

# To customise without modifying the installation:
# Copy to: <Data Dir>/config/notification/email/
# Edit there — TeamCity uses these over the defaults.

# Example: customise failure email subject
# File: <Data Dir>/config/notification/email/build_failed.ftl
Subject: [TC] FAILED: ${build.buildType.fullName} #${build.buildNumber} on ${build.branch.name!"default"}

# Available template variables include:
# ${build} — the build object (status, number, branch, params)
# ${buildType} — the build configuration
# ${project} — the project
# ${changes} — list of VCS changes
# ${firstFailedBuild} — the first build that introduced the failure

TeamCity 2017.2.2 has no built-in Slack notifier. Implement it with a Command Line build step that posts to a Slack incoming webhook, set to run "even if previous steps failed."

Setup

1. In Slack: Your workspace → Apps → Incoming Webhooks → Add to Slack. Select channel. Copy the webhook URL.
2. Store it in TeamCity as a password parameter: env.SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL.
3. Add a Command Line step to your build config:

#!/bin/bash
# Slack notification step (execute: even if previous steps failed)

STATUS="$BUILD_STATUS"
COLOR="good"
if [ "$STATUS" = "FAILURE" ]; then COLOR="danger"; fi
if [ "$STATUS" = "SUCCESS" ]; then COLOR="good"; fi

PAYLOAD=$(cat <<EOF
{
  "attachments": [{
    "color": "$COLOR",
    "title": "$BUILD_CONFIGURATION: #$BUILD_NUMBER",
    "title_link": "${TEAMCITY_SERVER_URL}/viewLog.html?buildId=${BUILD_ID}",
    "text": "Branch: ${BUILD_BRANCH}\nStatus: $STATUS",
    "footer": "TeamCity"
  }]
}
EOF
)

curl -s -X POST -H 'Content-type: application/json' \
  --data "$PAYLOAD" "$SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL"

Parameters used: %teamcity.build.status%, %build.number%, %teamcity.build.branch%, %build.id%, %teamcity.serverUrl% — these are standard predefined parameters from Phase 8.

TeamCity generates a status badge image you can embed in GitHub READMEs or wikis.

# Badge URL format:
http://YOUR_TC_SERVER/app/rest/builds/buildType:(id:BuildConfigId)/statusIcon

# For HTTPS server:
https://ci.yourcompany.com/app/rest/builds/buildType:(id:BackendServices_Build)/statusIcon

# Embed in GitHub README.md:
[![Build Status](https://ci.yourcompany.com/app/rest/builds/buildType:(id:BackendServices_Build)/statusIcon)](https://ci.yourcompany.com/viewType.html?buildTypeId=BackendServices_Build)

# Optional: filter to specific branch
https://ci.yourcompany.com/app/rest/builds/buildType:(id:BackendServices_Build),branch:(name:main)/statusIcon