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Also known as: Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment
Combined practices that automate building, testing, and releasing software from commit to production.
DESCRIPTION
CI/CD integrates frequent code changes, automatically builds and tests them, and continuously delivers deployable artifacts. It shortens feedback cycles, reduces release risk, and supports high deployment frequency. CI/CD pipelines orchestrate stages like linting, unit tests, integration tests, security scans, packaging, and deployment. Together with DevOps culture, CI/CD underpins modern software delivery and MLOps workflows.
ALTERNATIVE DEFINITIONS
Red Hat
CI/CD is a method to frequently deliver apps to customers by introducing automation into the stages of app development.
Frames CI/CD as automation for frequent delivery.
Microsoft Learn
CI/CD is the combined practices of continuous integration and either continuous delivery or continuous deployment.
Clarifies CD as delivery or deployment variants.
GitLab
CI/CD is the practice of automating the software development lifecycle—from integration and testing phases to delivery and deployment.
Covers automation across the full lifecycle.
RELATED TERMS
Continuous Integration Continuous Delivery Continuous Deployment DevOps Deployment Pipeline Automated Testing Infrastructure as Code Releasing Observability Feature Flags
COMPETING TERMS
Manual Release Process Waterfall Model
RELATIONS
- Broader: DevOps
KNOWLEDGE AREAS
Software Engineering Platform & Tooling Testing & Validation MLOps
TARGET AUDIENCE
Software Developer DevOps Engineer MLOps Engineer Cloud Architect Data Engineer
EXTERNAL SOURCES
- Wikipedia - CI/CD
- Red Hat - CI/CD overview and benefits
- Microsoft - Microsoft CI/CD definition
- GitLab - CI/CD topic hub
TOP QUESTIONS
Why is CI/CD still relevant?
It enables frequent, reliable releases with fast feedback, supporting agile delivery and reducing operational risk.
Category: Relevancy
What is the difference between CI, CD (delivery), and CD (deployment)?
CI integrates and tests code; continuous delivery keeps it deployable; continuous deployment automatically releases every passing change.
Category: Misunderstanding
What are common CI/CD pipeline stages?
Linting, build, unit tests, integration tests, security scans, packaging, and deployment are typical stages.
Category: Overview
What risks exist in CI/CD?
Flaky tests, insecure secrets handling, and insufficient rollback can cause outages or security incidents.
Category: Risks
How does CI/CD apply to data and ML?
It automates data validations, model training, packaging, and promotions with reproducibility and governance controls.
Category: Data Science
Which metrics track CI/CD health?
DORA metrics—lead time, deployment frequency, change failure rate, and MTTR—provide a holistic view.
Category: Observability
How to secure CI/CD pipelines?
Use least-privilege credentials, secret vaults, signed artifacts, and supply chain security checks like SBOM and provenance.
Category: Security
What is the role of infrastructure as code in CI/CD?
IaC enables consistent, repeatable environments and automatable deployments, reducing configuration drift.
Category: Requirements
How to start with CI/CD?
Begin with CI on every commit, add fast tests, then automate deployments to non-prod, expanding to production with safeguards.
Category: GettingStarted