Configuring and Using Jenkins Shared Libraries for Flexible Pipelines

Jenkins shared libraries allow reusable Groovy code to be packaged and referenced across pipelines, providing more flexible and powerful CI/CD workflows.

The article outlines three main parts: the library contents, how to create the library, and how to use it.

Library contents include a typical directory structure with docs/README.md , src/org/devops/tools.groovy , and vars folder, where src holds Groovy classes added to the classpath and vars holds script files exposed as global variables.

── docs
│   └── README.md
├── src
│   └── org
│       └── devops
│           └── tools.groovy
└── vars

To create a library, a new file src/org/devops/tools.groovy is added, defining a class with utility methods such as PrintMes(value, color) that prints colored messages using the AnsiColor plugin.

package org.devops

// formatted output
def PrintMes(value, color){
    colors = ['red'   : "\033[40;31m >>>>>${value}<<<<< \033[0m",
              'blue'  : "\033[47;34m ${value} \033[0m",
              'green' : "[1;32m>>>>>${value}>>>>>[m",
              'green1': "\033[40;32m >>>>>${value}<<<<< \033[0m"]
    ansiColor('xterm') {
        println(colors[color])
    }
}

In Jenkins global configuration, the shared library is added under “Global Pipeline Libraries” with a name (e.g., jenkinslib ) and a default branch (e.g., master ), pointing to the Git repository URL and credentials if the repo is private.

To use the library in a Jenkinsfile, the syntax @Library('jenkinslib') _ loads it, after which the class can be instantiated ( def tools = new org.devops.tools() ) and its methods called, for example tools.PrintMes("获取代码",'green') within pipeline stages.

#!groovy
@Library('jenkinslib') _
def tools = new org.devops.tools()
pipeline {
    agent { node { label "master" } }
    stages {
        // Get code stage
        stage("GetCode"){
            steps{
                timeout(time:5, unit:"MINUTES"){
                    script{
                        tools.PrintMes("获取代码",'green')
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

The article concludes by encouraging readers to run the pipeline on their Jenkins instance to verify that colored log output appears.