The existing AutoBuilder script to schedule builds should probably be extended to schedule builds on demand from the command line. The idea is for the script to accept several arguments (buildset, and whatever parameters are available for that buildset, like repo, branch and tag/commit) so it's easier and more flexible to schedule or kick builds off from the cli.
I currently have a script that does this. Let me take this and I'll commit this on Monday.
I've a bit of reference code that can be used to do this: http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/yocto-autobuilder/commit/?id=31a41dce03579fc7ba39abf83b302d7f564390ad TODO: clean it up a bunch.
This is obsoleted by the new autobuilder codebase.