How to Use Stages and Steps in a Jenkins Pipeline

By Daniel Zoghalchali·Latchkey

In Jenkins, a stage is a named phase shown on the pipeline graph, and steps are the actual commands run inside it.

Each stage groups a unit of work and appears as a column in the Stage View. Inside, steps holds the sh, echo, or plugin calls that execute.

Stages with steps

Three stages render as three columns; the steps inside each do the work.

pipeline {
  agent any
  stages {
    stage('Install') {
      steps {
        sh 'npm ci'
      }
    }
    stage('Lint') {
      steps {
        sh 'npm run lint'
      }
    }
    stage('Test') {
      steps {
        echo 'Running tests'
        sh 'npm test'
      }
    }
  }
}

Gotchas

• A stage must contain exactly one of steps, parallel, matrix, or nested stages.
• Stage names show in the UI; keep them short and descriptive.
• A failing step fails its stage and, by default, stops the pipeline.

Key takeaways

• stage names a phase; steps runs the commands.
• Each stage holds one of steps, parallel, matrix, or nested stages.
• A failed step fails the stage and halts the pipeline by default.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides

References

• GitHub Actions documentation