5.6. Build Steps

Now Jenkins should know where and how often to obtain the project source code. The next thing you need to explain to Jenkins is what it what to do with the source code. In a freestyle build, you do this by defining build steps. Build steps are the basic building blocks for the Jenkins freestyle build process. They are what let you tell Jenkins exactly how you want your project built.

A build job may have one step, or more. It may even occasionally have none. In a freestyle build, you can add as many build steps as you want to the Build section of your project configuration (see Figure 5-26). In a basic Jenkins installation, you will be able to add steps to invoke Maven and Ant, as well as running OS-specific shell or Windows batch commands. And by installing additional plugins, you can also integrate other build tools, such as Groovy, Gradle, Grails, Jython, MSBuild, Phing, Python, Rake, and Ruby, just to name some of the more well-known tools.