How do you manage builds for a monorepo in Jenkins with multiple services Can you share a Jenkinsfile to target specific folders or services

Question

How would you handle building a monorepo project in Jenkins, where multiple services or applications reside in the same repository? Could you provide a Jenkinsfile example for targeting specific folders or services?

This question addresses how to manage builds in monorepos, where multiple projects or services reside in a single repository. It emphasizes strategies for configuring Jenkins pipelines to target and build specific services or folders efficiently, ensuring an optimized CI/CD process.

Answer 1

The build management in Jenkins for a monorepo requires pipelines that can target particular folders or services in the repository for efficient builds without related, unnecessary processing.

Monorepo Builds Management Approach:

Detect Changes in Particular Folders:
By using Git, determine which parts of the repository have been updated and only trigger builds for services that will be impacted by those changes.

Define Pipeline Logic for Every Service:
Configure the Jenkins pipeline to build particular folders or services. Use conditional logic to determine which stages should be executed.

Sample Jenkinsfile for Monorepo Builds:

Main Pipeline Steps:
Checkout Code: Gets the latest code from repository
Detect Changes: Uses git diff to show folders changed
Conditional Builds: Use when conditions for build stages to only run if the relevant services have changed
Parallel Execution: Build the services in parallel to reduce pipeline run time
Best Practices
Module Logic: Implement common steps in Jenkinsfile using shared libraries or functions across services
Optimize Triggering: Configure webhooks to trigger build only on relevant changes.
Pipeline performance monitoring: resource usage and build times on a regular basis
This way, one can ensure that monorepos are being built in a good way with proper targeting and with minimalistic resource usage and time required for building.