Jenkins 2: Up and Running

Chapter 15. Other Interfaces

While pipeline scripts and the legacy web interface are the primary interfaces that most people will use with Jenkins, it also comes with a command-line interface and a REST-ful API interface. These are limited in what they can do, but they can serve a purpose for basic operations, such as getting information about jobs and initiating builds. This chapter will describe the CLI and REST interfaces along with examples of how to use them.

Additionally, we’ll discuss the scripting console, another interface in Jenkins that allows you to try out Groovy code. This can be useful for running quick scripts or getting/setting information about the system.

Eclipse Jenkins Interface

While we are focusing here on the different interfaces built into Jenkins itself, it’s worth noting that there is also an external interface for the Eclipse IDE (Figure 15-1). This is a plugin for editing Jenkins build scripts.

As the website states, it provides a number of features:

• Syntax highlighting, customizable colors, predefined default for Dark Theme

• Groovy syntax validation

• Validate by Jenkins Linter directly from editor by context menu

• Bracket switching (Ctrl-p)

• Outline + Quick outline (Ctrl-o) for Declarative Pipelines

• Block commenting (Ctrl-7)

If you are familiar with Eclipse and prefer to work in it as an IDE to develop your build scripts, this may be worth investigating.

Figure 15-1. Eclipse plugin for editing Jenkins build scripts

Using the Command-Line ...