CI/CD · Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery
/ see-eye-see-DEE /
CI/CD is a tireless robot that automatically tests and ships your code every time you push a change. Instead of you remembering to run the tests and copy files to the server, a machine does it the same careful way, every single time.
CI — Continuous Integration — is the testing half. Each time someone pushes new code, CI builds the project and runs the tests, so a mistake gets caught in minutes instead of next week. It's the friend who double-checks your work before anyone else sees it.
CD — Continuous Delivery — is the shipping half. Once the tests pass, CD packages the code up and deploys it, so the latest good version reaches users automatically. Together they form a 'pipeline': push your code, and it flows from your laptop to production with no nervous manual steps.
# .github/workflows/ci.yml
on: push
jobs:
test:
steps:
- run: npm install
- run: npm testEvery push triggers the robot: install, then run the tests — automatically.
The 'D' sometimes means Deployment (auto-deploy) rather than Delivery (deploy-ready); folks use them loosely.