Table of contents
What is CI/CD?
CI or Continuous Integration is the practice of automating the integration of code changes from multiple developers into a single codebase. It is a software development practice where the developers commit their work frequently to the central code repository (Github or Stash). Then there are automated tools that build the newly committed code and do a code review, etc as required upon integration. The key goals of Continuous Integration are to find and address bugs quicker, make the process of integrating code across a team of developers easier, improve software quality and reduce the time it takes to release new feature updates.
CD or Continuous Delivery is carried out after Continuous Integration to make sure that we can release new changes to our customers quickly in an error-free way. This includes running integration and regression tests in the staging area (similar to the production environment) so that the final release is not broken in production. It ensures to automate the release process so that we have a release-ready product at all times and we can deploy our application at any point in time.
What Is a Build Job?
A Jenkins build job contains the configuration for automating a specific task or step in the application building process. These tasks include gathering dependencies, compiling, archiving, or transforming code, and testing and deploying code in different environments. Jenkins supports several types of build jobs, such as freestyle projects, pipelines, multi-configuration projects, folders, multibranch pipelines, and organization folders.
What are Freestyle Projects?
Jenkins freestyle projects allow users to automate simple jobs, such as running tests, creating and packaging applications, producing reports, or executing commands. Freestyle projects are repeatable and contain both build steps and post-build actions. Even though freestyle jobs are highly flexible, they support a limited number of general build and post-build actions. Any specialized or non-typical action a user wants to add to a freestyle project requires additional plugins.
