This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Bhaskar Sharma
Hello dev.to community! 👋
Yesterday, I explored Ansible, a powerful configuration management tool that automates server setup and application deployment.
Today, I’m diving into Jenkins, one of the most popular CI/CD tools that automates software delivery pipelines.
🔹 Why Jenkins Matters
Modern software development requires frequent updates, testing, and deployments. Jenkins helps by:
✅ Automating builds, tests, and deployments
✅ Supporting 1,800+ plugins (integrates with almost everything)
✅ Scalable — can run on a single server or distributed agents
✅ Open-source & widely adopted across the industry
🧠 Core Jenkins Concepts
Pipeline → A series of steps (build → test → deploy)
Job/Project → A single automation task (e.g., build a Java app)
Agent/Node → Where Jenkins executes jobs
Plugins → Add integrations (Docker, Kubernetes, GitHub, etc.)
Jenkinsfile → Code representation of pipelines (declarative or scripted)
🔧 Example: Simple Declarative Pipeline
pipeline {
agent any
stages {
stage('Build') {
steps {
echo "Building the application..."
}
}
stage('Test') {
steps {
echo "Running tests..."
}
}
stage('Deploy') {
steps {
echo "Deploying application..."
}
}
}
}
👉 Save this in a Jenkinsfile and Jenkins will execute the pipeline automatically.
🛠️ DevOps Use Cases
Continuous Integration (CI) → Run unit tests on every commit
Continuous Delivery (CD) → Deploy apps to staging/prod automatically
Infrastructure pipelines → Integrate with Terraform & Ansible
Security scans → Integrate with tools like SonarQube, Trivy
⚡ Pro Tips
Use Jenkins pipelines as code (Jenkinsfile) for version control
Run Jenkins in Docker/Kubernetes for scalability
Secure Jenkins with role-based access control & credentials manager
Automate notifications (Slack, email) for pipeline status
🧪 Hands-on Mini-Lab (Try this!)
1️⃣ Install Jenkins (Docker is easiest 🚀)
2️⃣ Create a simple freestyle job to print “Hello DevOps”
3️⃣ Write a Jenkinsfile for a simple pipeline
4️⃣ Integrate GitHub → trigger builds on every commit
🎯 Key Takeaway
Jenkins automates the CI/CD pipeline, making software delivery faster, consistent, and reliable — a must-have skill for DevOps engineers.
🔜 Tomorrow (Day 19):
I’ll explore GitHub Actions — CI/CD natively built into GitHub.
🔖 #Jenkins #DevOps #CI/CD #Automation #SRE
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Bhaskar Sharma
Bhaskar Sharma | Sciencx (2025-09-18T03:34:50+00:00) ⚙️ Day 18 of My DevOps Journey: CI/CD with Jenkins — Automating Build, Test & Deploy Pipelines 🚀. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2025/09/18/%e2%9a%99%ef%b8%8f-day-18-of-my-devops-journey-ci-cd-with-jenkins-automating-build-test-deploy-pipelines-%f0%9f%9a%80/
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