Jenkins: How to Create Builds with the Jenkins Freestyle Project

Jenkins: How to Create Builds with the Jenkins Freestyle Project

   January 26, 2020       Codez Tech

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A Jenkins freestyle project is a repeatable build made up of build steps and post-build actions. You choose what runs at each stage, and there are dozens of standard plugins available to extend it. This blog walks through creating a freestyle job from scratch, pointing it at a Git repository, compiling a Java program, and checking the console output.

Jenkins create & build freestyle project

The below topics are covered in this blog -

1) What is a freestyle project in Jenkins?
2) Creating a new freestyle build job
3) Configuring source code management with Git
4) Adding a build step
5) Running the build and reading the console output

1. Freestyle Project in Jenkins

A Jenkins project consists of build steps and post-build actions. The actions you can perform fall into three places: the build step, the post-build action, or a Jenkins pipeline. There are a large number of standard plugins available to cover most common requirements.

2. Creating a Freestyle Build Job

To create a Jenkins freestyle job, log in to your Jenkins dashboard. If Jenkins is hosted locally, visit http://localhost:8080. If it is hosted elsewhere, use that URL instead.

Step 1

Click New Item in the top left corner of your dashboard.

Jenkins New Item

Step 2

Enter the name of the item, choose Freestyle project, and click OK.

Freestyle Project

Step 3

Enter the details of the project you want to set up.

Jenkins Project Details

Step 4

Under Source Code Management, enter your repository URL so Jenkins can clone it. For this example the URL is:

https://github.com/kriru/firstJava.git

Jenkins Setup Git Project

Step 5

Click Add build step → Execute Windows batch command and add the commands you want to run. In our case:

javac HelloWorld.java
java HelloWorld

On a Linux or macOS agent, use Execute shell instead of Execute Windows batch command — the two commands themselves stay the same.

Jenkins Build Windows Batch Command

Step 6

Click Apply & Save, then Build Now to check whether the build succeeds.

Jenkins Build Now

Jenkins Build Successful

Step 7

If you want to explore further, click Console Output to see the detailed result.

Jenkins Console Output

Congratulations — we have executed our HelloWorld program from Jenkins.

3. Video Walkthrough

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About the Author
Atique Ahmed — Principal AI Architect. 7x Microsoft MVP and Guinness World Record holder for Programming Excellence. Founder of Codez Tech.
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