CloudBees CI Lexicon

This lexicon is a collection of terms and definitions used by CloudBees.

A
agent

An agent is the CloudBees CI component that connects to a Jenkins controller and executes tasks as directed by the controller. It can be installed on a computer, virtual machine, or container. You can configure an agent to have multiple executors, meaning it can run multiple tasks at a time for the controller that it is connected to. In CloudBees CI, an agent can be a shared resource available to multiple controllers or it can be dedicated to a single controller.

air-gapped

A network configuration that ensures network-connected resources, such as computers or processes, behave as if they are physically isolated from unsecured networks, such as the public internet or an unsecured local area network.

app integration

The ability for CloudBees CI to integrate with various apps to extend reporting and notification options. Integrations are available for GitHub and BitBucket SCMs, Slack, and Microsoft Teams.

artifact

File created as a result of a build or Pipeline run.

B
Beekeeper Upgrade Assistant (Beekeeper)

The user interface that administrators can use to manage plugin versions and enforce compliance with the CloudBees Assurance Program’s recommended sets of plugins and versions. It provides a centralized view of the monitored plugins, recommended actions, and configuration options.

branch

A Source Control Management (SCM) term meaning a branch off the trunk of your source code with specific changes and a specific version of the code.

build agent
build details

The page where a build’s logs can be explored.

build run

A single instance of a completed build.

C
CloudBees CD/RO

CloudBees CD/RO automates and orchestrates software releases, pipelines, and deployments—​personalized for each user—​with the analytics and insight to measure, track, and improve results.

checkpoint

A step that can be added to a Pipeline that allows you to restart a Pipeline build from a certain point. A new flow build, using a new build number, is started. It skips all of the steps preceding the checkpoint and runs only the remainder of the flow.

CloudBees CI

CloudBees CI is a fully-featured, cloud native capability that can be hosted on-premise or in the public cloud to deliver CI at scale. It provides a shared, centrally managed, self-service experience for all your development teams running Jenkins. CloudBees CI on modern cloud platforms is designed to run on Kubernetes. CloudBees CI on traditional platforms has been developed for on-premise installations.

client controller (formerly known as Client Master)

A component of CloudBees CI on traditional platforms that is configured to use CloudBees' proprietary tools and enterprise features to coordinate builds for projects.

cloud

A computing service that remotely processes and stores system resources.

cloud environment

A public, private, or hybrid computing environment that uses shared hosted resources.

CloudBees Analytics

The new single source of truth to monitor and optimize the underlying CI infrastructure across your enterprise. With actionable insights, you can enhance your build performance, right-size your workloads over demand cycles, prevent unplanned downtimes, get a holistic view of your plugin usage across all your Pipeline jobs, and more.

CloudBees Assurance Program (CAP)

A program that is designed and maintained by CloudBees to test plugins, plugin versions, and plugin dependencies to determine their stability. Verified plugins in the CAP are both independently stable and tested as a whole to ensure compatibility with each other and the CloudBees CI instance. This provides greater stability and security for CloudBees CI environments.

Configuration as Code (CasC)

A method of simplifying the configuration of the operations center or controller by capturing the configuration of the operations center or controller in human-readable declarative files that can be used in a reproducible way.

controller

A controller is the central, coordinating process that stores configurations, loads plugins, and renders the various user interfaces for CloudBees CI. The controller serves requests and handles build tasks.

D
Declarative Pipeline

A streamlined version of the Pipeline syntax that provides a smaller set of options but more powerful capabilities than the Scripted Pipeline.

downstream Pipeline

Projects triggered or executed as part of, or triggered by the results of, a Pipeline.

E
Executor

An executor is a computational resource for running builds and performing operations. It can run on any controller or agent. An executor can be parallelized on a specific controller or agent.

F
fingerprinting

A method of tracking the downstream builds that are using any given artifact in a Pipeline.

folder

A means of organizing Projects or other items within the Jenkins workspace, much like directories in a desktop computer’s filesystem.

Freestyle project

Freestyle projects are used to implement, develop, or run simple jobs. They can span multiple operations like building and running scripts.

I
item

A folder, Pipeline, or Project in the Jenkins environment.

J
Jenkins

Jenkins® is an open source automation server. With Jenkins, organizations can accelerate the software development process by automating it. Jenkins manages and controls software delivery processes throughout the entire lifecycle, including build, document, test, package, stage, deployment, static code analysis and much more.

Jenkins CLI

Command-line tools to manage operations center jobs or projects, as well as agent- and administration-related activities.

Jenkinsfile

A text file that contains the definition of a Jenkins Pipeline and is checked into source control.

L
label

A text label applied to an agent and used within a Pipeline to specify which agent should be used to execute an entire Pipeline or a Pipeline Stage.

M
managed controller (formerly known as Managed Master)

A component of CloudBees CI on modern cloud platforms that uses CloudBees' proprietary tools and enterprise features to coordinate builds.

multibranch Pipeline

A multibranch Pipeline can be used to automatically create Pipelines based on branches and pull requests in your repository.

N
node

A node is an operating system or container running Jenkins as an agent. Most work a Pipeline performs is done in the context of one or more declared node steps. Confining the work inside of a node step does two things:

O
on-premise (on-prem)

Resources running the software are deployed in-house and within an enterprise’s IT infrastructure. An enterprise is responsible for maintaining the solution and its related processes.

operations center

A component of CloudBees CI that enables centralized management of managed controllers and team controllers (for CloudBees CI on modern cloud platforms), and client controllers (for CloudBees CI on traditional platforms).

organization folder

A convenient way to allow Jenkins to automatically manage which repositories are automatically included in Jenkins.

P
Pipeline

In CloudBees CI and CloudBees Jenkins Platform, a Jenkins Pipeline is a suite of plugins which supports implementing and integrating continuous delivery pipelines into Jenkins. Pipeline provides an extensible set of tools for modeling simple-to-complex delivery pipelines "as code" via the Pipeline DSL.

Pipeline as Code

A set of features that allow Jenkins users to define Pipeline job processes with code and are stored and versioned in a source control repository. These features allow Jenkins to discover, manage, and run jobs for multiple source control repositories and branches, eliminating the need for manual job creation and management.

Pipeline policy

Runtime validations that work for both scripted and declarative Pipelines and provide administrators a way to include warnings for or block the execution of Pipelines that do not comply with certain regulatory requirements, rules, or best practice guidelines.

Pipeline stage

A discrete set of one or more Pipeline steps.

Pipeline step

A discrete Declarative Pipeline command.

Pipeline Template

CloudBees Pipeline Templates give your organization the ability to enforce consistency. A small team can determine what Pipeline options are appropriate for your needs, and all of your development teams can choose from one of those options when they set up a software delivery project.

Pipeline Template Catalog

Pipeline Template Catalogs provide version-controlled parameterized templates for multibranch and standalone Pipeline jobs.

plugin

A method for adding functionality to CloudBees CI. CloudBees offers a variety of proprietary plugins to extend the capabilities of your CloudBees CI instances.

plugin catalog

A configuration file that specifies plugins and their associated versions. It widens the acceptable scope of plugins beyond those defined by the CloudBees Assurance Program. This scope includes the ability to specify plugin dependency rules and acceptable version ranges for these plugins.

plugin manager

A screen in the CloudBees CI UI that lists the plugins that are available to be installed, uninstalled, or updated on a controller.

Preview feature

Has not undergone end-to-end testing with CloudBees products

project

A process automated by Jenkins, such as testing commits to a GitHub repository or building a software package through a Pipeline.

R
Role-based Access Control (RBAC)

Access control provides security for all system objects and a comprehensive mechanism to control how individuals use the system. The Role-based Access Control plugin is the preferred authorization strategy for CloudBees CI, and is installed by default. The RBAC plugin gives a CloudBees CI administrator the ability to define multiple security roles.

S
Scripted Pipeline

The original Jenkins Pipeline syntax language, based on the Groovy scripting language. Largely supplanted by the Declarative Pipeline syntax.

CloudBees Software Delivery Automation

CloudBees Software Delivery Automation enables enterprises to optimize their software delivery process for increased innovation and security by connecting, automating, and orchestrating the tools and functions across development, operations, and shared services teams.

shared agent

An agent that can be shared for use across connected controllers in the operations center cluster. A shared agent can only be used by one controller at a time.

shared cloud

A group of agents attached to the operations center as a single entity that can provide multiple agents to client controllers. You can configure multiple shared clouds in the operations center, and you can have multiple agents per cloud.

shared library

A method of sharing parts of Pipelines between various projects.

sidecar injector

An option in CloudBees CI that lets you use a self-signed certificate or a custom certificate authority (CA) to access internal HTTPS services, such as a source code management (SCM) repository or an artifact repository.

snippet generator

A utility that is built into Jenkins that is helpful for creating bits of code for individual steps, discovering new steps provided by plugins, or experimenting with different parameters for a particular step.

source code management

A method of tracking changes to a source code repository.

stage

A stage is a step for defining a conceptually distinct subset of the entire Pipeline, for example: "Build", "Test", and "Deploy". A stage is used by many plugins to visualize or present Jenkins Pipeline status/progress.

step

A single task. Fundamentally, steps tell Jenkins what to do. For example, to execute the shell command make, use the sh step: sh 'make'.

T
team controller (formerly known as Team Master)

A component of CloudBees CI on modern cloud platforms that uses CloudBees’ proprietary tools and enterprise features to coordinate builds.

U
CloudBees Update Center

Enables Jenkins administrators to host their own Update Center for the Jenkins instances that they administer. This Update Center will provide the Jenkins administrator with the ability to both restrict the plugins available and host their own custom plugins.

Upstream Pipeline

A Pipeline Project that triggers or executes another Pipeline.

user-scoped credentials

A method of limiting the use of privileged credentials to specific tasks within a Pipeline.

W
workspace

The location on the Jenkins controller where Jenkins builds its Projects.

Lexicon index
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