Jenkins is an open source Continuous Integration tool. However, it's not limited to Continuous Integration alone. In the upcoming chapters, we will see how Jenkins can be used to achieve Continuous Delivery, Continuous Testing, and Continuous Deployment. Jenkins is supported by a large number of plugins that enhance its capability. The Jenkins tool is written in Java and so are its plugins. The tool has a minimalistic GUI that can be enhanced using specific plugins if required.
Let's have a look at the components that make up Jenkins. The Jenkins framework mainly contains jobs, builds, parameters, pipelines and plugins. Let's look at them in detail.