CI Plugin Marketplace

Product design — plugin marketplace concept and experience architecture proposal

Role: Senior Designer

product-design

Problem

Jenkins' built-in plugin manager is a flat list inside the central settings page — no hierarchy between plugin types, no distinction between CloudBees proprietary and community plugins, and no context to help users understand what a plugin does before installing it.

Solution

Proposed a three-part improvement: a modern marketplace UI with app-store-style browsing and categorisation; explicit callouts for CloudBees proprietary plugins within the marketplace; and a new per-plugin settings architecture (established by the notification plugins) so every CloudBees plugin has its own dedicated experience rather than routing through the Jenkins settings hub. A wireframe prototype demonstrated the full proposed flow.

From settings list to app-store experience

01 Plugin Marketplace

Jenkins ships a centralised plugin manager — a flat list of everything available, nested inside the main settings hub. Functional, but not designed for discovery or adoption. The proposal extended the settings architecture established by the notification plugins — where each plugin has its own dedicated experience — into a full marketplace. A modern browsable UI would surface available plugins with richer context before installation, explicit callouts for CloudBees proprietary plugins alongside community ones, and a consistent settings pattern for every CloudBees plugin. Three improvements in one: a better marketplace, clearer product visibility, and a new experience baseline for CloudBees-built plugins.

001

Part of the CloudBees selected work →