GSoC 2025 - Gradle Convention Plugin for Developing Jenkins Plugins

This project aims to modernize Jenkins plugin development with Gradle by updating the Gradle JPI plugin to comply with Jenkins hosting requirements. The goals include achieving feature parity with Maven workflows, migrating the codebase from Groovy to Kotlin, and improving developer experience through a new convention plugin streamlining the build, test, and release process for Jenkins plugins. This project will provide the Jenkins community with a modern, robust Gradle-based ecosystem by improving developer efficiency and plugin reliability.

Team

Contributor

• Aarav Mahajan

Mentors

• Oleg Nenashev
• Rahul Somasunderam
• Steve Hill

Rationale

Jenkins plugin development is currently fragmented across two major build tools: Maven and Gradle. While Maven enjoys mature support through the Jenkins Parent POM, the Gradle ecosystem lags behind due to an outdated and incomplete Gradle JPI plugin. This results in:

• Non-compliance with Jenkins Hosting Requirements, making plugin publishing harder

• Poor support for compatibility testing (PCT)

• Cumbersome dependency management and BOM integration

• Inconsistent development experience due to the Groovy-based configuration

• Lack of standardized, reusable configuration via a convention plugin

These issues make it significantly harder for developers, especially those familiar with Gradle, to contribute high-quality plugins to the Jenkins ecosystem.

References

• Project Page on the GSoC site
• Contributor Proposal