Overview
CI/CD stands for Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (or Continuous Deployment). It is a modern software development practice that automates the process of building, testing, and releasing code. The goal is to deliver applications faster, more reliably, and with fewer errors by integrating code changes frequently and deploying them automatically.
What Problem Does It Solve?
In traditional software development, code is integrated and released in large batches, which often causes delays, bugs, and conflicts. CI/CD solves this by encouraging small, frequent code updates that are automatically tested and deployed. This reduces integration issues, shortens release cycles, and ensures that applications remain stable while evolving quickly.
How It Works
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Continuous Integration (CI): Developers frequently merge code into a shared repository. Automated builds and tests run immediately to catch errors early.
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Continuous Delivery (CD): Code that passes tests is automatically prepared for release, ensuring it can be deployed to production at any time.
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Continuous Deployment (CD): Extends delivery by automatically deploying every change to production once it passes all tests, with no manual intervention.
Everyday Benefits
- Faster release cycles, enabling quicker innovation.
- Higher code quality thanks to automated testing and feedback loops.
- Reduced downtime and fewer production issues.
- Stronger collaboration between development and operations teams.
Deployment Considerations
CI/CD requires a strong DevOps culture, robust test automation, and tools such as Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, or Azure DevOps. While it accelerates delivery, organisations must ensure security and compliance are integrated into pipelines. Done right, CI/CD becomes the backbone of agile and cloud-native development practices.
