CI/CD

CI/CD stands for continuous integration and continuous delivery (sometimes deployment): a pipeline that builds, tests, and often ships code whenever someone merges a change — instead of a person clicking “deploy” and hoping.

Continuous integration means new work is merged often and checked automatically (QA tests, linting, type checks). Continuous delivery means that passing build is always ready to release; continuous deployment goes one step further and pushes it live. Tools include GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, and Jenkins, usually hooked to Git on GitHub.

A real-life example of CI/CD

Without a pipeline, a Friday deploy is “run tests on my laptop, upload files, refresh, panic.” With CI/CD, a pull request triggers the same checks every time: if tests fail, the site doesn’t ship. Same idea as a kitchen that won’t plate a dish until the thermometer beeps.

Small teams gain fewer “it worked on my machine” surprises — especially when the pipeline builds a Docker image and runs the same checks every time. For a concrete pipeline walkthrough, see Deploying and Hosting Rust Web Apps and Configuring and Testing TypeScript Projects.