Problem Statement
What is the purpose of stages in a Jenkins Pipeline?
Explanation
Stages organize the pipeline into logical phases representing different parts of the CI/CD process. Common stages include Build (compile code), Test (run tests), Package (create artifacts), Deploy (deploy to environments), and Release (publish releases). Stages provide clear visualization in Jenkins UI showing which phase succeeded or failed, and how long each took.
Each stage contains steps block with actual commands to execute. Stages run sequentially by default but can be parallelized. Example:
```groovy
stages {
stage('Build') {
steps { sh 'mvn compile' }
}
stage('Test') {
steps { sh 'mvn test' }
}
stage('Deploy') {
steps { sh './deploy.sh' }
}
}
```
Stages improve pipeline readability, enable stage-level visualization in Blue Ocean, support stage-level post actions, allow conditional stage execution with when directive, and can have stage-specific agents. Understanding stages is essential for organizing complex pipelines into manageable, understandable phases.
