jenkins-export

Export Jenkins job configurations into a single text file so you can search across jobs (for example with grep or your editor) for build steps, triggers, or other settings.

Requirements

• Python 3
• requests

Install dependencies:

pip install requests

Your Jenkins user must be allowed to list jobs and read each job’s config.xml (typical for admins or users with Job/Read permissions).

How to run

From this repository:

python jenkins_export.py

The script is interactive. It will ask for:

1. Jenkins URL — Base URL of the controller, e.g. https://jenkins.example.com or http://localhost:8080 (no trailing slash required).
2. Authentication — Answer y if the server requires login, otherwise n.
3. If you chose y: username and API token or password — Prefer a Jenkins API token over your account password when possible.

It then downloads every job’s configuration, extracts triggers and build steps where it can, and appends a short slice of the raw XML per job.

Progress is printed in the terminal (job count and current job name).

Output

A new file is created in the current working directory:

jenkins_configs_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.txt

Open it in an editor or search from the shell, for example:

grep -i "some-pattern" jenkins_configs_*.txt

The file includes, per job: triggers (timer, poll SCM, cron where recognized), build steps (shell, batch, trigger downstream job, etc.), plus the first 50 lines of each job’s XML config for deeper inspection.

Troubleshooting

• 401 / 403 — Check URL, user, and token/password; confirm the account can access the jobs API and each job’s config.
• Empty or partial results — Some job types use plugins whose XML does not match the patterns this script parses; use the embedded XML snippet or Jenkins UI for those jobs.
• Connection errors — Confirm the URL is reachable from your machine (VPN, firewall, correct scheme http vs https).