Tools & DevOps · reviewed in August 2026
CI/CD
CI/CD (Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery or Deployment) is the practice of automating a software project's build, test, and release steps every time new code is pushed, instead of doing it manually. It shortens the time between writing code and seeing it running reliably in production.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between continuous integration and continuous deployment?
Continuous integration (CI) automates building the project and running its tests on every change; continuous deployment (CD) goes a step further and also automates publishing those changes to production once they pass the tests.
What does a typical CI pipeline run?
Dependency install, linters, type checks, the automated test suite, and sometimes a production build — all in a clean environment that reproduces real conditions, not just 'it works on my machine'.
Why does a pipeline fail, and what do you do then?
Because a test, a linter, or the build caught a real problem in the proposed change; the right practice is fixing the root cause before merging, never disabling the check to force it to pass.