CI / CD

CI/CD (or CI/CD pipeline) stands for Continuous [Integration](/ressources/glossaire-de-la-tech/integration) / Continuous Delivery (or Deployment).

CI/CD is an approach that speeds up the path from code to production by automating every step of development and deployment.

CI applies to development teams and — as the name implies — continuously integrates the code they produce. Each small piece of the application is tested and merged into the existing code.

CD applies to operations teams responsible for deploying the code produced upstream. The terms Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployment are related. Continuous Delivery automates the handover of code from one team to the next, improving visibility and communication between teams that historically struggled to talk to each other (see [DevOps](/ressources/glossaire-de-la-tech/devops)).

Continuous deployment automates the deployment itself — pushing the integrated code (from CI) to the production environment used by end users. Delivery and Deployment — very close concepts, sometimes confused — make up the second half of an application's development cycle.

In a nutshell, CI/CD automates the development, delivery and deployment stages. The DevOps engineer is usually the person who sets up the CI/CD. Because of its end-to-end automation, the CI/CD approach pairs naturally with Agile and accelerates the evolution and time-to-market of an application.

It powers a company's ability to ship new features quickly and consistently and to react to customer feedback.