[jenkins] How to change workspace and build record Root Directory on Jenkins?

EDIT: Per other comments, the "Advanced..." button appears to have been removed in more recent versions of Jenkins. If your version doesn't have it, see knorx's answer.

I had the same problem, and even after finding this old pull request I still had trouble finding where to specify the Workspace Root Directory or Build Record Root Directory at the system level, versus specifying a custom workspace for each job.

To set these:

  1. Navigate to Jenkins -> Manage Jenkins -> Configure System
  2. Right at the top, under Home directory, click the Advanced... button: advanced button under Home directory
  3. Now the fields for Workspace Root Directory and Build Record Root Directory appear: additional directory options
  4. The information that appears if you click the help bubbles to the left of each option is very instructive. In particular (from the Workspace Root Directory help):

    This value may include the following variables:

    • ${JENKINS_HOME} — Absolute path of the Jenkins home directory
    • ${ITEM_ROOTDIR} — Absolute path of the directory where Jenkins stores the configuration and related metadata for a given job
    • ${ITEM_FULL_NAME} — The full name of a given job, which may be slash-separated, e.g. foo/bar for the job bar in folder foo


    The value should normally include ${ITEM_ROOTDIR} or ${ITEM_FULL_NAME}, otherwise different jobs will end up sharing the same workspace.