macOS BuildCaptain pins your Jenkins pipelines to the macOS menu bar — status, logs, and build controls one click away.
BuildCaptain

Connect your Jenkins server

Create an API token, enter your server details, and understand the HTTPS requirement and needed permissions.

Loris Siegenthaler Written by Loris Siegenthaler · Maker of BuildCaptain
3 min read
Updated August 20, 2026

BuildCaptain connects directly to your Jenkins server — no middleman, no cloud account. You need three things: the server URL, your username, and an API token.

1. Create a Jenkins API token

In Jenkins, click your name (top right) → Security (or Configure on older versions) → API Token → Add new token. Give it a name like "BuildCaptain" and copy the generated value — Jenkins shows it only once.

Use an API token, not your password. Tokens can be revoked individually and work with single sign-on setups.

For the longer version — scoping tokens to a service user, rotating them, and revoking one you have leaked — see our guide Jenkins API tokens: create, scope, rotate, and revoke.

2. Enter your server details

Open BuildCaptain → Settings and enter:

  • Server URL — e.g. https://jenkins.example.com/. HTTPS is required for servers reached by hostname; BuildCaptain refuses plain-HTTP hostnames to protect your token. The one exception: internal Jenkins instances on a private network address — e.g. http://10.0.0.5:8080/, http://192.168.1.20/, or http://localhost:8080/ — may use plain HTTP, since that traffic never crosses the public internet. Requires BuildCaptain 26.8.3 or later.
  • Username — your Jenkins login name.
  • API token — the token from step 1. It is stored in the macOS Keychain.

Save, and BuildCaptain validates the connection immediately.

3. Check the plugin

The stage graph, step logs, stop, and rerun features come from the Pipeline Graph View plugin. If it is missing, pipelines still list and run, but the graph page will report that the endpoint was not found — ask your Jenkins admin to install it.

Permissions

Your account needs Job/Read to browse and watch pipelines. Starting, stopping, and rerunning builds additionally need Job/Build and Job/Cancel. If an action fails with a permission error, BuildCaptain shows the server's response in the error details.

Having trouble?

If the connection fails — a proxy login page, a certificate problem, a 401 — see Troubleshooting connections.