Managing Jenkins Jobs with the python‑jenkins API

This article introduces the python-jenkins library as a way to control a Jenkins server programmatically from Python.

Key capabilities include creating, copying, deleting, and updating jobs; managing builds, nodes, views, credentials, plugins, and Jenkins shutdown mode; as well as retrieving detailed information such as job configurations, build data, and server version.

Usage approach : locate the desired API method in the documentation, examine its parameters, and test the call in an interactive Python interpreter.

Install the library: pip install python-jenkins==1.6.0 Example interactive session:

>>> import jenkins
>>> server = jenkins.Jenkins("http://127.0.0.1:8080", username="admin", password="admin")
>>> server.get_whoami()
{'_class': 'hudson.model.User', 'absoluteUrl': 'http://127.0.0.1:8080/user/admin', 'description': '', 'fullName': 'admin', 'id': 'admin', ...}

List all available methods on the server object:

>>> dir(server)
['_class', '__delattr__', '__dict__', '__dir__', '__doc__', '__eq__', '__format__', '__ge__', '__getattribute__', '__gt__', '__hash__', '__init__', '__init_subclass__', '__le__', '__lt__', '__module__', '__ne__', '__new__', '__reduce__', '__reduce_ex__', '__repr__', '__setattr__', '__sizeof__', '__str__', '__subclasshook__', '__weakref__', '_add_missing_builds', '_auth_resolved', ... 'create_job', 'copy_job', 'delete_job', 'disable_job', 'enable_job', 'get_job_config', 'get_job_info', 'build_job', 'stop_build', ...]

Typical workflow to duplicate a job:

Retrieve the XML configuration of an existing job.

Use create_job with a new name and the retrieved XML.

Verify creation with job_exists.

Example:

config_xml = server.get_job_config("demo-test")
server.create_job("demo-test-02", config_xml)
print(server.job_exists("demo-test-02"))  # True

Copying a job:

>>> server.copy_job("demo-test-02", "demo-test-03")
>>> server.job_exists("demo-test-03")
True

Below is a full script that creates a new project from a template, replaces a parameter value, and creates the job if it does not already exist:

import jenkins

# login
serverUrl = "http://127.0.0.1:8080"
username = "admin"
password = "admin"
server = jenkins.Jenkins(serverUrl, username, password)

defProjectName = "demo-devops-service"
newProjectName = "demo-test-service"

if not server.job_exists(newProjectName):
    print("Project does not exist, creating it")
    config_xml = server.get_job_config(defProjectName)
    newconfig_xml = config_xml.replace("<defaultValue>svn</defaultValue>", "<defaultValue>git</defaultValue>")
    print(newconfig_xml)
    server.create_job(newProjectName, newconfig_xml)
else:
    print("Project already exists!")

Running the script produces output similar to:

Project does not exist, creating it
<?xml version='1.1' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<project>
  <actions/>
  <description/>
  <keepDependencies>false</keepDependencies>
  <properties>
    <hudson.model.ParametersDefinitionProperty>
      <parameterDefinitions>
        <hudson.model.StringParameterDefinition>
          <name>srcType</name>
          <description/>
          <defaultValue>git</defaultValue>
          <trim>false</trim>
        </hudson.model.StringParameterDefinition>
      </parameterDefinitions>
    </hudson.model.ParametersDefinitionProperty>
  </properties>
  <scm class="hudson.scm.NullSCM"/>
  <canRoam>true</canRoam>
  <disabled>false</disabled>
  <blockBuildWhenDownstreamBuilding>false</blockBuildWhenDownstreamBuilding>
  <blockBuildWhenUpstreamBuilding>false</blockBuildWhenUpstreamBuilding>
  <triggers/>
  <concurrentBuild>false</concurrentBuild>
  <builders/>
  <publishers/>
  <buildWrappers/>
</project>

The resulting Jenkins UI shows the newly created job with the updated parameter, confirming that the API calls succeeded.