If Hudson is configured to make builds unstable according to certain thresholds on checkstyle, PMD, etc., it's not always obvious to developers why a build is unstable. They can see immediately when there are test failures, but if any of the other thresholds is the cause of an unstable build, it's not obvious...

I suggest including a simple reason like this, on the status screen:

Build #23 is unstable because

• Checkstyle threshold exceeded
• Findbugs threshold exceeded

Then the developers will immediately know what caused the build to be unstable.

An additional benefit would be if this information was also included in the email that is sent out.

Even if we don't fail builds because of checkstyle etc, I guess this feature would be relevant also for failed builds (for those who use that).