GSoC Midterm Update, Building an AI-Powered Chatbot

Giovanni Vaccarino July 24, 2025

Hello everyone!

I’m Giovanni Vaccarino, and I’m working on the AI-Powered Chatbot for Quick Access to Jenkins Resources project as part of Google Summer of Code 2025. This project focuses on developing a Jenkins plugin that integrates an AI chatbot to help users quickly find relevant Jenkins documentation, plugins, and community resources.

We’ve just crossed the midpoint of July, so I’d like to share a progress update on the project.

What I’ve Accomplished So Far

Here are the major milestones I’ve achieved in this period:

Built the complete data pipeline for the RAG-based chatbot, from data collection to embedding and vector storage
Implemented a REST API to serve the chatbot functionalities
Developed the plugin UI, which was integrated into the Jenkins user interface
Written unit and integration tests for both the backend and frontend components
Continuously update the project documentation

What I’ve Learned

While this journey has been full of technical growth, GSoC has been about much more than just writing code. It’s been about having meaningful discussions, valuable mentorship, and collaboration by exchanging ideas and opinions.

What’s Next?

With several weeks still ahead, I’m fully committed to continue the work on the project. The second phase will focus on enhancing the quality of the chatbot’s responses. I plan to explore agentic approaches and develop more complex chains and flows, all while keeping the response time constraints in mind.

Acknowledgements

A huge thank you to my mentors Vutukuri Sreenivas, Kris Stern, Bervianto Leo Pratama, and Bruno Verachten for their constant availability, quick responses, code reviews, and thoughtful guidance.

Also, a big shout-out to the Jenkins org admins Kris Stern, Bruno Verachten, and Alyssa Tong for their continuous support throughout the coding period.

Midterm Presentation

We’ve recently completed the GSoC midterm presentation for the project, where I walked through the current status, key features and future plans. If you are interested in a more detailed overview, you can check out the recording here.

Want to Track the Project?

Follow the plugin’s development: GitHub Repo

I’m excited for the weeks ahead and to keep building with the Jenkins community!

About the author

Giovanni Vaccarino

Giovanni is a Computer Engineering graduate currently pursuing a double Master of Science in Computer Science and Engineering through a joint program between Politecnico di Milano and the University of Illinois Chicago. With a strong interest in machine learning, natural language processing, and software development, he deepens his expertise through academic research and hands-on experience. In 2025, he was selected as a Google Summer of Code (GSoC) contributor for the Jenkins project, where he is working on building an AI-Powered Chatbot for Quick Access to Jenkins Resources. Outside of tech, Giovanni enjoys spending time outdoors.