CI/CD Pipeline Guide for Developers

Published 2026-02-06 • Updated 2026-02-06

Learn CI/CD fundamentals and build automated pipelines.

What is CI/CD?

CI (Continuous Integration): Automatically build and test code changes.

CD (Continuous Deployment): Automatically deploy code to production.

CI/CD Pipeline Stages

Source: Developer pushes code to Git
Build: Compile code, run tests
Test: Unit tests, integration tests
Deploy: Deploy to staging/production
Monitor: Track performance, errors

Popular CI/CD Tools

GitHub Actions: Built into GitHub
GitLab CI/CD: Integrated with GitLab
Jenkins: Open-source automation server
CircleCI: Cloud-based CI/CD
Travis CI: Simple CI for open source

GitHub Actions Example

name: CI/CD Pipeline

on:
  push:
    branches: [ main ]

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      
      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm install
      
      - name: Run tests
        run: npm test
      
      - name: Build
        run: npm run build
      
      - name: Deploy
        run: npm run deploy

Benefits of CI/CD

✅ Faster releases
✅ Fewer bugs in production
✅ Automated testing
✅ Consistent deployments
✅ Faster feedback loops

Best Practices

Run tests on every commit
Keep builds fast (under 10 minutes)
Deploy to staging before production
Use infrastructure as code (Terraform)
Monitor deployments