[Buildbot-devel] setting the description field for ShellCommand

[Brian Warner]

> It does look like you can set description and descriptionDone
> manually.  My changes allowed setting name instead, which is what I've
> been using, but perhaps this was just a misunderstanding of the
> documentation on my part...

name= is used by the internal status API to identify the BuildStep. It gets
used to name the saved logfiles, and to form part of the URL to retrieve
those logfiles. Also, it doesn't change once the build has started (since it
gets used as a key). description= is the preferred form for setting the
displayed text for the BuildStep.. it is allowed to change during the course
of the Step as long as it stops changing once the Step completes.

I think that name= is used for that displayed text only if you don't provide
a description= value.

cheers,
 -Brian