The default tab of the Activity view shows a list of the latest completed or active runs. Each line represents the status of a run, run ID, commit information, and when the run completed.

This view does not allow runs to be edited or marked as favorites. To perform these actions, select the Branches tab.

The Branches tab shows a list of all branches that have a completed or active run in the current Pipeline. Each line in the list corresponds to a branch in source control, displaying the overall health of the branch based on the status of the most recent run, branch name, commit information, and when the run completed.

Selecting a branch brings up the Pipeline run details for the latest completed or active run of that branch.

The Pull Requests tab displays a list of all pull requests for the current Pipeline, that have a completed or active run. Each line in the list corresponds to a pull request in source control, which displays the status of the most recent run, run ID, summary, author, and when the run completed.

Blue Ocean displays pull requests and branches separately, but the lists behave similarly. Selecting a pull request in this list will bring up the Pipeline run details for the latest completed or active run of that pull request.

The pull request list does not display health icons, and pull requests cannot be edited or marked as favorites.

To create your Pipeline project for a Git repository, click the Git button under Where do you store your code?

In the Connect to a Git repository section, enter the URL for your Git repository in the Repository URL field.

You now must specify a local or remote repository from which to build your Pipeline project.

To create your Pipeline project directly for a repository on GitHub, select the GitHub option under Where do you store your code? .

In the Connect to GitHub section, enter your GitHub access token into the Your GitHub access token field.
If you previously configured Blue Ocean to connect to GitHub using a personal access token, Blue Ocean takes you directly to the GitHub account/organization and repository choice steps below:

If you do not have a GitHub access token, select the Create an access key here option to open GitHub to the New personal access token page.

To create your Pipeline project directly for a Git or Mercurial repository on Bitbucket Cloud, select the Bitbucket Cloud button under Where do you store your code?

In the Connect to Bitbucket section, enter your Bitbucket email address and password into the Username and Password fields.

Select Connect and your current/logged in Jenkins user will now have access to your Bitbucket account. You can now choose your Bitbucket account/team and repository.

Blue Ocean represents the overall health of a Pipeline/item or one of its branches using weather icons. These icons change depending on the number of recent builds that have passed.

Health icons on the Dashboard represent overall Pipeline health, whereas the health icons in the Branches tab of the Activity View represent the overall health for each branch.

Blue Ocean represents the run status of a Pipeline/item or one of its branches using a consistent set of icons throughout.

When Jenkins is installed on most platforms, the Blue Ocean plugin and all necessary dependent plugins, which compile the Blue Ocean suite of plugins, are not installed by default.

Plugins can be installed on a Jenkins instance by any Jenkins user who has the Administer permission. This is set through Matrix-based security . Jenkins users with this permission can also configure the permissions of other users on their system. Refer to the Authorization section of Managing Security for more information.

To install the Blue Ocean suite of plugins to your Jenkins instance:

Refer to the the Managing Plugins page for more information. Blue Ocean does not require additional configuration after installation. Existing Pipelines and projects will continue to work as usual.

The Blue Ocean suite of plugins is not bundled with the official Jenkins Docker image, jenkins/jenkins , which is available from the Docker Hub repository.

Read more about running Jenkins and Blue Ocean inside Docker in the Docker section of the installing Jenkins page.

The DevOps world has transitioned from developer tools that are purely functional, to developer tools being part of a "developer experience." It was no longer about a single tool, but the many tools developers use throughout the day, and how they work together to achieve a better workflow for the developer.

Developer tool companies like Heroku, Atlassian, and GitHub have raised the bar for what is considered a good developer experience. Gradually, developers have become more attracted to tools that are not only functional, but are designed to fit into their existing workflow seamlessly. This shift represents a higher standard for design and function, where developers are expecting an exceptional user experience. Jenkins needed to rise to meet this higher standard.

Creating and visualising continuous delivery Pipelines has always been something valuable for many Jenkins users. This has been demonstrated in the plugins that the Jenkins community has created to meet their needs. This also indicates a need to revisit how Jenkins currently expresses these concepts, and consider delivery pipelines as a central theme to the Jenkins user experience.

It is not just continuous delivery concepts, but the tools that developers use every day such as GitHub, Bitbucket, Slack, Puppet, or Docker. It is about more than Jenkins, as it includes the developer workflow surrounding Jenkins, which comprised multiple tools.

New teams can encounter challenges when learning how to assemble their own Jenkins experience. However, the goal to improve their time to market by shipping better software more consistently is the same. Assembling the ideal Jenkins experience is something we, as a community of Jenkins users and contributors, can work together to define. As time progresses, developers' expectations of a good user experience change, and the Jenkins project needs to be receptive to these expectations.

The Jenkins community has worked constantly to build the most technically capable and extensible software automation tool in existence. Not revolutionizing the Jenkins developer experience today could mean that a closed source option attempts to capitalize on this in the future.

Blue Ocean was created to meet such demands of its time. However, as time passed, more modern tools have cropped up to replace it. Now, the time has come for the rise of other plugins of similar functionality. Therefore, any new development or enhancement of Blue Ocean has ceased. If you are interested in contributing to a plugin which serves a similar purpose, you should consider the alternative options as suggested in What is Blue Ocean? section on above.

The name Blue Ocean comes from the book Blue Ocean Strategy. This strategy involves looking at problems in the larger uncontested space, instead of strategic problems within a contested space. To put this more simply, consider this quote from ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky: "Skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been."

Extensibility is a core feature of Jenkins and being able to extend the Blue Ocean UI is equally important. The <ExtensionPoint name=..> can be used in the markup of Blue Ocean, leaving places for plugins to contribute to the UI. This means plugins can have their own Blue Ocean extension points. Blue Ocean itself is implemented using these extension points.

Extensions are delivered by plugins as usual. Plugins must include some additional JavaScript to connect to Blue Ocean’s extension points. Developers that have contributed to the Blue Ocean user experience will have added this JavaScript accordingly.

Blue Ocean is built as a collection of Jenkins plugins. The key difference is that Blue Ocean provides both its own endpoint for HTTP requests, and it delivers HTML/JavaScript via a different path, without using the existing Jenkins UI markup or scripts. React.js and ES6 are used to deliver the JavaScript components of Blue Ocean. Inspired by this excellent open-source project, which you can refer to in the building plugins for React apps blog post, an <ExtensionPoint> pattern was established that allows extensions to come from any Jenkins plugin with JavaScript. If the extensions fail to load, their failures are isolated.

The source code can be found on Github: