Per http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18458608/how-to-do-sparse-checkout-in-git-using-java , JGit does not support sparse checkout. I reviewed the pre-release source code for JGit 3.3.0 and found no indication of support for sparse checkout.

That does not preclude implementing sparse checkout in the plugin for command line git, but it would be another case where the JGit implementation does not match the command line implementation.

The git-client-plugin will include sparse checkout support in its next release after 1.6.4. Efforts are still in progress to include matching support in the git-plugin. Refer to https://github.com/jenkinsci/git-client-plugin/commit/d0e603746286e1e362cdf7c5c32b97fdf5099cad and later commits for the changes to git-plugin.

markewaite If you fixed this in Git 2.1.0 in march of 2014, why is the latest release still 1.19.6 on the plugins list? Im trying to get this feature at my current job, so I can checkout just specific directories

Jenkins uses two plugins to implement git support.

The git-client-plugin provides low level implementation details and delivers its functionality with either command line git or JGit (a pure java implementation of a useful subset of command line git). The current version of the git-client-plugin is 1.19.6 as of 16 May 2016.

The git-plugin provides higher level implementation like optional merging, changing the base against which differences are computed, optionally ignoring commits, and more. The current version of the git-plugin is 2.4.4 as of 16 May 2016.

Please use the mailing list for support questions, rather than posting questions to closed bug reports. There are far fewer people who read closed bug reports than read the mailing list.