Jenkins 2: Up and Running

Chapter 2. The Foundations

Now that you understand the big ideas around which Jenkins 2 is built, we can move on to how Jenkins 2 supports pipelines-as-code. A key first step is understanding the development environment that Jenkins provides specifically for working with pipelines. This includes the systems we run our pipelines on as well as the interfaces for creating, executing, and monitoring pipelines. Additionally, you need to know about some of the basic structures that make up a pipeline, and how they fit together. Together, these elements will provide a solid foundation to build on for the rest of the book.

We’ll approach this task by concentrating on four basic areas:

• The two styles of syntax that can be used for creating pipelines

• The systems used to run the pipeline processes

• The basic structure of a pipeline

• The support environment (and tooling) that Jenkins provides for pipeline development and execution

We’ll start by defining and disambiguating some key concepts and terminology used with pipelines. Then we’ll survey the required DSL structures. Along the way, we’ll look at how to use the built-in editor and how to use a new tool in Jenkins to help figure out pipeline syntax.

Once you know how to input your pipeline code, we’ll move on to executing a pipeline and understanding the new views that Jenkins provides. We’ll also look at how to access logs from a run. Finally, we’ll explore new functionality in Jenkins that allows us to try out changes to pipelines, ...