Docker Agents

Run Jenkins stages inside Docker containers for clean, reproducible build environments.

1 min readintermediate20 minUpdated July 30, 2026

jenkinsdockeragents

Why Docker agents?

Clean environment every build
Same image locally and in CI
Node 18 and Node 20 jobs on one machine without conflicts
Easy cleanup when the container exits

Example

pipeline {
    agent none
 
    stages {
        stage('Test') {
            agent {
                docker {
                    image 'node:20-alpine'
                    args '--network host'
                    reuseNode true
                }
            }
            steps {
                sh 'node --version'
                sh 'npm ci && npm test'
            }
        }
    }
}

The agent needs Docker available (Docker Pipeline plugin + Docker CLI on the node).

Use official language images (node:20, maven:3.9, golang:1.22) so toolchains stay consistent.