Issue

String arg1 = "arg1" 
String arg2 = "arg2"

String cm = "curl -H \\'Authorization: ${arg1}\\' -H \\'X-CUSTOM-HEADER:${arg2}\\' www.google.com"

node { 
  sh cm 
}

The expected output is:

[Pipeline] {
[Pipeline] sh
+ curl -H 'Authorization: arg1' -H 'X-CUSTOM-HEADER:arg2' www.google.com

Actual output is:

Output: 
[Pipeline] sh 
+ curl -H ''\''Authorization:' 'arg1'\''' -H ''\''X-CUSTOM-HEADER:arg2'\''' www.google.com

Environment

• CloudBees CI (CloudBees Core) on modern cloud platforms - Managed controller
• CloudBees CI (CloudBees Core) on traditional platforms - Client controller
• CloudBees Jenkins Enterprise - Managed controller
• CloudBees Jenkins Platform - Client controller
• CloudBees Jenkins Distribution
• Jenkins LTS
• Pipeline plugin

Resolution

No action is required.

The “weird” escaping is just for the build console output of the command that was run, which escapes things one more level than what was actually received (to prevent things like ANSI escape codes from applying to that output).