Using Scripted Pipeline syntax

Scripted Pipeline, like Declarative Pipeline, is built on top of the underlying Pipeline sub-system. Unlike Declarative, Scripted Pipeline is effectively a general purpose DSL built with Groovy. Most functionality provided by the Groovy language is made available to users of Scripted Pipeline, which means it can be a very expressive and flexible tool with which one can author continuous delivery pipelines.

Flow Control

Scripted Pipeline is serially executed from the top of a Jenkinsfile downwards, like most traditional scripts in Groovy or other languages. Providing flow control therefore rests on Groovy expressions, such as the if/else conditionals, for example:

// Scripted //
node {
    stage('Example') {
        if (env.BRANCH_NAME == 'main') {
            echo 'I only execute on the main branch'
        } else {
            echo 'I execute elsewhere'
        }
    }
}
// Declarative //▼

Another way Scripted Pipeline flow control can be managed is with Groovy’s exception handling support. When Steps fail for whatever reason they throw an exception. Handling behaviors on-error must make use of the try/catch/finally blocks in Groovy, for example:

// Scripted //
node {
    stage('Example') {
        try {
            sh 'exit 1'
        }
        catch (exc) {
            echo 'Something failed, I should sound the klaxons!'
            throw
        }
    }
}
// Declarative //▼

Steps

The most fundamental part of a Pipeline is the "step." Fundamentally, steps tell Jenkins what to do, and serve as the basic building block for both Declarative and Scripted Pipeline syntax.

Scripted Pipeline does not introduce any steps which are specific to its syntax; Pipeline Steps reference which contains a comprehensive list of steps provided by Pipeline and plugins.

Differences from plain Groovy

In order to provide durability, which means that running Pipelines can survive a restart of the Jenkins controller, Scripted Pipeline must serialize data back to the controller. Due to this design requirement, some Groovy idioms such as collection.each { item → /* perform operation */ } are not fully supported. See JENKINS-27421 and JENKINS-26481 for more information.