Branch-specific pipeline behavior in Jenkins - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Branch-specific pipeline behavior

📖 Scenario: You work in a team that uses Jenkins to automate software builds. Different branches in your code repository need different build steps. For example, the main branch runs full tests, but feature branches run only quick checks.

🎯 Goal: Build a Jenkins pipeline script that runs different steps depending on the branch name. You will create a variable for the branch, set a condition to check the branch, and run branch-specific commands.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a variable branchName to hold the branch name.

Add a condition to check if branchName is 'main'.

Run a shell command echo "Running full tests" if on main branch.

Run a shell command echo "Running quick checks" if on any other branch.

Print a message showing which branch is being built.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Teams use branch-specific pipelines to run different tests or deployments depending on the code branch, saving time and resources.

💼 Career

Knowing how to write conditional Jenkins pipelines is a key skill for DevOps engineers to automate CI/CD workflows efficiently.

1

Set the branch name variable

Create a variable called branchName and set it to the string 'main'.

Jenkins

# Create a variable called branchName and set it to 'main'
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use def branchName = 'main' to create the variable.

2

Add a condition to check the branch

Add an if statement that checks if branchName is equal to 'main'.

Jenkins

def branchName = 'main'
// Add an if statement to check if branchName == 'main'
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use if (branchName == 'main') to check the branch.

3

Add branch-specific shell commands

Inside the if block, add sh 'echo "Running full tests"'. Add an else block with sh 'echo "Running quick checks"'.

Jenkins

def branchName = 'main'
if (branchName == 'main') {
    // Add shell command for main branch
} else {
    // Add shell command for other branches
}

Need a hint?

Use sh 'echo "Running full tests"' inside the if block and sh 'echo "Running quick checks"' inside the else block.

4

Print the branch being built

Add a println statement after the if-else block to print "Building branch: " followed by the branchName variable.

Jenkins

def branchName = 'main'
if (branchName == 'main') {
    sh 'echo "Running full tests"'
} else {
    sh 'echo "Running quick checks"'
}
// Print the branch name
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use println("Building branch: ${branchName}") to print the branch name.