Freestyle means improvised or unrestricted. A freestyle project in Jenkins is a project that spans multiple operations. It can be a build, a script run, or even a pipeline.
According to the official Jenkins wiki, a freestyle project is a typical build job or task. This could be as simple as running tests, building or packaging an application, sending a report, or even running some commands. Before any tests are run, data is collated. This can also be done by Jenkins. Jenkins collects data through multiple ways depending on what is being achieved and the purpose of the data in question. A real-world scenario could involve, for instance, the collection of application artifacts after builds. In relation to management, Jenkins allows us to send reports at any defined stage, which could entail artifact information, or shipping application logs to a log management entity, such as Elasticsearch.
In the previous chapter, we highlighted what a Continuous Integration pipeline would entail, and how Jenkins handles code through the pipeline. This chapter will now demonstrate this through builds, eventually building on pipelines as we progress.
As a prerequisite, we assume that everyone will have the required knowledge needed to set up freestyle projects of diļ¬erent kinds, including:
- Application Builds: These enable applications to be bundled and packaged
- Test jobs: These enable application tests to be run
- Script runs: These enable various processes to be run such as report delivery and command executions