Options directive (timeout, retry) in Jenkins - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Using Jenkins Options Directive with Timeout and Retry

📖 Scenario: You are setting up a Jenkins pipeline to build a simple project. Sometimes the build step can take too long or fail temporarily. To handle this, you want to add controls to stop the build if it takes too long and retry the build if it fails.

🎯 Goal: Build a Jenkins pipeline script that uses the options directive to set a timeout of 5 minutes and retry the build step 2 times if it fails.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a Jenkins pipeline with a pipeline block

Add an options directive with timeout set to 5 minutes

Add retry directive to retry the build step 2 times

Include a simple sh step that simulates a build command

Print a message when the build starts

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

In real projects, builds can hang or fail temporarily. Using timeout and retry helps keep pipelines reliable and efficient.

💼 Career

DevOps engineers often configure Jenkins pipelines with options like timeout and retry to improve automation robustness.

1

Create the basic Jenkins pipeline structure

Create a Jenkins pipeline script with a pipeline block and a stages section containing one stage named Build. Inside the Build stage, add a steps block with a shell command echo "Starting build".

Jenkins

pipeline {
    // Define the pipeline
    // Your code here
}

Need a hint?

Start with pipeline {} and add stages with one stage('Build'). Use sh 'echo "Starting build"' inside steps.

2

Add the options directive with timeout

Inside the pipeline block, add an options directive that sets a timeout of 5 minutes using timeout(time: 5, unit: 'MINUTES').

Jenkins

pipeline {
    // Add options directive with timeout here
    stages {
        stage('Build') {
            steps {
                sh 'echo "Starting build"'
            }
        }
    }
}

Need a hint?

Use options { timeout(time: 5, unit: 'MINUTES') } inside the pipeline block but outside stages.

3

Add retry logic to the build step

Inside the steps block of the Build stage, wrap the sh command with a retry(2) block to retry the build step 2 times if it fails.

Jenkins

pipeline {
    options {
        timeout(time: 5, unit: 'MINUTES')
    }
    stages {
        stage('Build') {
            steps {
                // Add retry block here
            }
        }
    }
}

Need a hint?

Wrap the sh command inside retry(2) { ... } to retry twice on failure.

4

Print a message to confirm pipeline setup

Add a post section inside the pipeline block with an always block that prints echo 'Pipeline finished' after the pipeline runs.

Jenkins

pipeline {
    options {
        timeout(time: 5, unit: 'MINUTES')
    }
    stages {
        stage('Build') {
            steps {
                retry(2) {
                    sh 'echo "Starting build"'
                }
            }
        }
    }
    // Add post section here
}

Need a hint?

Use post { always { echo 'Pipeline finished' } } inside the pipeline block to print after the run.