Introducing Plumber: Run Jenkinsfiles Without Jenkins

Every team with a Jenkins pipeline has been there: you make a one-line change to a Jenkinsfile, push, wait four minutes for a runner to pick it up, wait another two minutes for the job to start, and then — syntax error on line 12.

We built Plumber to fix that loop.

What is Plumber?

Plumber is a native desktop app (Go + Fyne) that parses your Jenkinsfile and executes it directly on your machine — no Jenkins server, no Docker daemon, no cloud CI queue. You get a real pipeline run with real shell output, real parallel stages, and real failure information in under a second from pressing Run.

What it supports today

• ▸stage() — serial and nested, full declarative syntax
• ▸parallel {} — concurrent execution via goroutines, Blue Ocean-style timeline
• ▸sh / bat / powershell — real process spawning, live stdout/stderr
• ▸build job: — finds matching Jenkinsfiles in your workspace and runs them as child pipelines
• ▸@Library() — resolved and logged; load steps execute Groovy via a local JVM
• ▸environment {} — vars injected into every shell step

The Plugin Marketplace

One of the biggest surprises we built is the plugin marketplace. It pulls live from plugins.jenkins.io and shows you the top 1,000 Jenkins plugins sorted by install count. You can search, filter by category, and install any plugin with one click. The plugin is downloaded directly from the Jenkins update centre and loaded into Plumber's plugin system.

A real execution engine, not a simulator

Plumber doesn't mock your pipeline. When you write sh 'go build ./...', Plumber actually runs go build ./... in your workspace directory. When a stage fails, it fails with the real exit code and full stderr — the same output you'd see on a Jenkins agent.

pipeline {
  agent any
  stages {
    stage('Build') {
      steps { sh 'go build ./...' }
    }
    stage('Test') {
      steps { sh 'go test ./... -v' }
    }
    stage('Deploy') {
      steps { sh './scripts/deploy.sh staging' }
    }
  }
}

Drop that file in a workspace, hit Run, and watch it go.

What's next

We're working on post {} block execution, proper withCredentials handling, and a Git integration for automatically pulling your workspace. A Pro plan for teams is also in development — stay tuned.

Download Plumber free at the link above. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux.