Changes in the `build.meta_data` field of the `build.finished` webhook event

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1

Hello,

We have an integration with a server that parses the webhook payloads for build.finished, and recently something seems to have changed in the .build.meta_data object in the payload.

It used to have data in it, namely the git commit that was used on that build, but now it comes empty. The information used to come in the "buildkite:git:commit" property.

"meta_data": {
  "buildkite:git:commit": "commit 9309ff3daf76dc3a8fdcc8e5ef07e808b3b52f52\nabbrev-commit 9309ff3\nAuthor: José Nogueira <ze@thatportugueseguy.com>\n\n    actual commit message"
},

Oddly, this seems to only be happening in the enterprise account, but not in the account i use for tests, and i can’t pinpoint why. As far as i know, there were no changes in configs on our end, so it seems that the change happened on buildkite’s side.

What i want to get is the email of the user that pushed the commit to the repo, causing the pipeline trigger to start a new build, and i’d like to know how can i get that in a sure way. We’ve been parsing this property for a while, and it was working fine, but stopped working last week.

I’ve looked at the webhook payload to look for a solution, and there are a few properties i can look at, but IIUC they are related to buildkite, rather than github, so they are not what i want.

These are author (not always present), creator, and sender. I was looking at sender, as i thought it might connect to github’s sender, but it doesn’t look like it, since it’s pointing to a buildkite id, which might not have a match in github.

How can i get this information from the webhook? I’d like to avoid the call to the github API to get the author of the commit if possible. Would be good too to understand what happened to the metadata commit information that was quite helpful.

Thanks in advance for your help

2

Hi Zenogueira :waving_hand: ,

Thank you for reaching out to Buildkite support. You can use the below GraphQL to get the details you need:

query GetWebhookPayload {
  build(uuid: "BUILD_UUID_HERE") {
    source {
      ...on BuildSourceWebhook {
        payload
      }
    }
  }
}

Let me know if you need any further assistance.

Cheers.

3

Hey Ola,

Thanks for your reply, but this solution is a no-go for my specific use case for two reasons:

  • We are not using graphql with buildkite, so it doesn’t make sense to introduce it just to get this detail
  • The reply of this query is 600kb long, it’s a bit too much to ask for to get only an email.

It would be good to understand what happened to the meta_data commit details. Did buildkite change the payload?

4

Hi again,

Thanks for reaching out back and for the clarification. Can you please send some build URLs where you are facing this issue. Upon further investigation, we have discovered that the field is populated. Having some builds to work with will help.

Cheers!

5

I have sent an email to support with the links. Thank you

Ola via Buildkite Community Forum <notifications@buildkite1.discoursemail.com> escreveu (quinta, 25/09/2025 à(s) 23:39):