Solutions Delivery Platform

Getting Started

Within the Jenkins Templating Engine framework, the technical implementation of different actions is done via libraries composed of one or more steps.

Libraries are configured as Library Sources either globally as part of the Global Jenkins Templating Engine configuration or within a particular Governance Tier.

Once a SCM repository has been set as a Library Source, you can begin creating libraries.

Creating a Library

Creating a Library is as easy as creating a root level directory within your configured Library Source’s source code repository.

An example repository structure could be:

README.rst
example_library/

The library is named and is referenceable by the directory name.

Creating a Step

To create a step, create a .groovy file within the library directory. The step name will be that of the basename of the file.

For example, to create a build step, add a build.groovy file:

README.rst
example_library/
    build.groovy

In most cases, writing a step is done by defining a call method within the groovy step file created. This call method can take input arguments and return objects. Within the step you can execute any old regular Jenkins pipeline code, including invoking other steps defined by loaded libraries.

Let’s say you wanted this build step to run mvn clean verify, your build.groovy file could be:

void call(){
    node{
        sh "mvn clean verify"
    }
}

Steps, like regular global variables in Jenkins Shared Libraries, can define methods other than call. See an example here.

Load the Library

With a directory created called example_library within your Library Source, you can now load this library from your pipeline configuration to make the steps contained therein accessible from your pipeline template.

pipeline_config.groovy:

libraries{
    example_library
}

Invoking the Step From a Template

With the example_library library loaded via your pipeline configuration file, you can then invoke the build step from a pipeline template via:

build()

which will execute the shell command defined in the step.

Advanced Considerations

Now that you know the basics of how to create a library, populate the library with steps, reference them from your pipeline configuration file, and invoke the step from a pipeline template you can now move on to some of the more advanced library development concepts:

Table 1. Advanced JTE Library Development
Concept	Description
Externalizing Library Configuration	Learn how to build reusable libraries by externalizing configurations to the pipeline configuration file
Validate Library Parameters	Learn how to validate library input parameters as part of your steps.
Leverage Lifecycle Hooks	Learn how to register steps for automatic invocation through annotation based registration

Default Step Implementation

Exernalizing Library Configuration