Jenkins normally run builds in the local machine. That means all the dependencies the build needs needs to be set up in the local machine. You can delegate these to other machines by setting up another host machine as jenkins slave.

Also check

You can, however use Docker containers to build the jobs. You can delegating the compile, test, package and deploy steps to a Docker container meaning you wont need to set up the host with build tools such as npm or gradle.

You use preconfigured Docker images that contain all the build tools you want.

Steps

Install Jenkins
Install docker
Add OS user jenkins to docker group.
Add the Jenkins Docker plugin and Jenkins Docker pipeline plugin
Reference Docker images in your Jenkinsfile builds

Adding Jenkins user to docker group

If running in the OS:

sudo usermod -aG docker jenkins

Install required plugins

Install these two plugins:

docker-plugin (Docker)
docker-workflow (Docker Pipeline)

Reference Docker images in your Jenkinsfile

Simple job

pipeline {
    agent { docker { image 'maven:latest' } }
    stages {
        stage('log version info') {
            steps {
                sh 'mvn --version'
                sh 'mvn clean install'
            }
        }
    }
}

When this pipeline runs, the Jenkins build happens on a Docker container. The maven:latest image is downloaded if it doesn’t exist locally then a container is created from it where the mvn commands will be run. if any artifacts are created, the Jenkins Docker build places these in the workspace in the local file system so they persist after the container is taken offline.

Another job

pipeline {
    environment {
        registry = "username/app"
        registryCredential = 'docker-registry-creds'
        dockerImage = ''
    }

    agent any

    stages {
        stage('Cloning the project from git') {
            steps {
                git branch: 'main',
                    credentialsId: 'github-token-creds',
                    url: 'https://github.com/username/app.git'
            }
        }

        stage('Building our image') {
            steps {
                script {
                    dockerImage = docker.build registry + ":${BUILD_NUMBER}"
                }
            }
        }

        stage('Push our image to the registry') {
          steps {
                script {
                    docker.withRegistry( '', registryCredential ) {
                        dockerImage.push()
                    }
                }
            }
        }

        stage('Using an image to execute some commands') {
            steps {
                script {
                    docker.image('maven:3.8.1-jdk-11-slim').inside {
                        sh """
                            mvn -DskipTests=true install
                        """
                    }
                }
            }
        }

        stage('Cleaning up') {
            steps {
                sh "docker rmi ${registry}:${BUILD_NUMBER}"
            }
        }
    }
}