Organization Proposal - GSoD 2021

This document is our draft to complete the Google Season of Docs 2021 organization proposal template.

About your organization

Jenkins, originally founded in 2006 as "Hudson", is one of the leading automation servers. The project’s motto is "Build great things at any scale". Using extensible, plugin-based architecture developers have created hundreds of plugins to adapt Jenkins to a multitude of build, test, and deployment automation workloads. Jenkins is open-source, MIT License is used for most of the components.

The project has thousands of active contributors working on Jenkins core, plugins, website, project infrastructure, localization activities, and, of course, documentation. We invite technical writers to join the community and contribute to the documentation being used by millions of Jenkins users worldwide.

About your project

We need to expand the documentation describing Jenkins on Kubernetes. We would like to create documentation that describes the concepts, techniques, and choices for Kubernetes users running Jenkins.

The improved documentation will also be referenced in a Kubernetes Solutions Page.

Your project’s problem

Jenkins users have significant challenges deploying on Kubernetes. A successful Jenkins deployment on Kubernetes combines many different Jenkins components. Mistakes in using those components create a less reliable and less usable Jenkins installation.

There are many levels to be addressed and many places where incomplete information and mistakes lead to installation and upgrade problems. The Jenkins documentation created by this project will describe the compromises and the alternatives for Jenkins on Kubernetes. Documentation users will be able to confidently deploy Jenkins on Kubernetes with an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of their solution.

Your project’s scope

Project scope will be adapted based on available time from the writer.

Preparation Phase

Writing Phase 1 - Docker images

  • Document creating a Docker image that contains plugins and use it in Kubernetes

  • Document maintaining plugin versions with plugin installation manager tool

Writing Phase 2 - Configuration as Code

  • Document maintaining system configuration with configuration as code

Writing Phase 3 - Agents

  • Document ephemeral agents in a Kubernetes cluster

    • Using the kubernetes plugin for ephemeral agents

    • Using static agents

Writing Phase 4 - Solution Page

  • Create solution page for Kubernetes

    • Videos

    • Links to jenkins.io documents

    • Links to other documents

Measuring project success

  • Significant increase in references to Jenkins documentation pages for Kubernetes.

  • Positive feedback on Kubernetes documentation in the documentation feedback

  • Low rate of new Kubernetes documentation issues reported in the jenkins.io issues.

Project budget

Table 1. Project budget table
Budget item Amount Running total Notes / justification

Technical writer to create detailed documentation for Jenkins on Kubernetes.

$6000.00

$6000.00

Assumes 6 months at 1000.00 per month for the writer

Volunteer stipends

$500.00

$7500.00

3 volunteer stipends x 500 each