The Template Step
The Jenkins Templating Engine adds a pipeline step called template that can be called from a pipeline.
This step is typically called indirectly when using a MultiBranch Project or when creating a GitHub Organization Job.
When this step is executed, the pipeline will have access to the primitives that have been defined via the aggregated result of the specified pipeline configuration files as well as any steps that have been contributed by loaded libraries.
Set the Template implicitely from a Governance Tier
The real power in the Jenkins Templating Engine is that it allows you to externalize the Jenkinsfile from an individual source code repository, and generalize it to be used by multiple teams simultaneously.
This means that the default way to define a Template is externally in a source code repository via a Governance Tier.
This is exactly what happens when you invoke the template step directly with no parameters via template().
When no parameters are passed, the pipeline configuration files defined on each Governance Tier are aggregated. This aggregated configuration is then used to initialize the Template’s environment with the various Primitives that were defined as well as load any libraries that have been configured.
Set the Template via a Closure
The template step itself takes an optional Closure parameter. This Closure parameter is most often used for testing, though if governance is not a factor it works just as well as
defining your pipeline template externally.
An Example
Let’s assume that you are running a typical Jenkinsfile and want to invoke the template step directly.
You have configured a Governance Tier that will load a library contributing a build() step.
Executing this build step then, can be done by trying to invoke it from within the context of the template step as follows:
/*
here you do not have access to the
build step because it has not been loaded yet
*/
template{
/*
now that you are within the context of the
template step, the library will have been loaded
and you will be able to execute the build step
*/
build()
}|
When a This is because if you want to restrict what template should be used, it’s best to use a Multibranch or GitHub Organization job to apply these standards across entire repositories or organizations. |