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CI-CD pipelines

TL/DR: an example​

If you want to jump right into an example on how to setup a workflow, you can check this NodeJS - Github example:

https://github.com/nullplatform/technology-templates-nodejs/blob/main/.github/workflows/ci.yml

What is CI/CD?

Overview​

Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) represent a essential approach in modern software development. It's all about consistently delivering software applications to end-users by injecting automation into various phases of the development process. Let's explore the fundamental ideas that form the foundation of CI/CD:

  • Continuous Integration (CI): This stage focuses on the automation of integration processes, building, and testing of new code changes. The primary aim is to ensure that these changes can be incorporated into the existing codebase without conflicts.

  • Continuous Delivery (CD): Building upon CI, CD assumes the responsibility for automating testing and delivery processes of code changes to a repository. The ultimate goal here is to prepare these changes for deployment in a production environment with minimal manual effort.

  • Continuous Deployment: Sometimes grouped under CD, continuous deployment takes the automation to the next level by releasing code changes into a live production environment once they pass automated tests.

The advantage of CI/CD is its capacity to tackle persistent code integration challenges and promote cooperation between software development and operations teams. It's a versatile approach that can be implemented using either the DevOps or site reliability engineering (SRE) methodologies, promoting agile teamwork.

Understanding the Differences​

Now, let's demystify the CI/CD acronym:

  • Continuous Integration (CI): At its core, CI is all about automating the integration and testing of code changes to ensure that multiple developers working on different features don't step on each other's toes. It promotes frequent code merges and swiftly identifies and resolves conflicts.

  • Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployment (CD): These terms are often used interchangeably, but they can also represent different levels of automation.

    • Continuous Delivery (CD): This stage automates the testing and delivery of code changes to a repository, making them ready for deployment to a production environment with minimal manual intervention.

    • Continuous Deployment (CD): This term kicks things up a notch by fully automating the release of code changes to a production environment, streamlining the delivery process further.

CI/CD Workflow​

The scope of CI/CD can vary, ranging from encompassing only continuous integration and continuous delivery to including all three phases, including continuous deployment. Sometimes, "continuous delivery" is used as an umbrella term that also includes continuous deployment. The precise definitions depends on the degree of automation integrated into the CI/CD pipeline.

In practice, CI/CD is often visualized as a pipeline, characterized by a high degree of automation and constant monitoring throughout the application development process. It's an adaptable approach that can be tailored to the specific needs of organizations, with many starting by implementing CI and gradually introducing automation into the delivery and deployment stages, particularly in the context of cloud-native application development.

Continuous Integration (CI)​

Modern application development frequently involves multiple developers working on different features of the same application concurrently. This scenario can lead to complexity and conflicts, especially when it's time to merge all the code changes together. Continuous Integration (CI) comes to the rescue by encouraging frequent merges of code changes into a shared branch or "trunk." Once these changes are merged, automated testing kicks in, including not only unit and integration tests but also tests for different modules that make up the entire application. The objective here is to quickly detect and resolve any conflicts or bugs introduced by new code changes. CI is instrumental in streamlining the development process.

Continuous Delivery (CD)​

Building upon the foundation of CI, Continuous Delivery (CD) further automates the release of validated code changes to a designated repository. This automation ensures that the codebase is consistently prepared for deployment in a production environment. Every step in the CD process, from code merging to the delivery of production-ready builds, is supported by test automation and code release automation. Consequently, operations teams can deploy applications to production quickly and effortlessly, significantly reducing the need for manual interventions.

Automating Deployments​

The highest achievement in a mature CI/CD pipeline is continuous deployment. This phase, an extension of continuous delivery, takes automation to its peak by automating the release of applications into production without manual checkpoints. Continuous deployment heavily relies on well-designed test automation to ensure that changes can be deployed within minutes of their creation, provided they pass automated testing. This approach not only facilitates continuous user feedback but also minimizes the risk associated with large-scale releases. However, it's important to note that a considerable upfront investment is required, particularly in developing automated tests to cover various stages of the CI/CD pipeline.

In conclusion, CI/CD is a multifaceted process that injects automation and continuous monitoring into application development. It empowers organizations to efficiently modernize existing applications and start on the journey of building new ones, all while streamlining development, testing, and deployment processes.

Understanding the CI/CD Process in nullplatform​

In nullplatform, you have the flexibility to choose any Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) tool that suits your needs. While we offer seamless integrations with major CI/CD tools like GitHub Actions, Gitlab Pipelines, Azure Pipelines, and more, we are tool-agnostic (see our CI/CD API. What matters most is that you integrate your chosen CI/CD tool with nullplatform to perform the following key functions:

  1. Initiate Build: Notify nullplatform when a build process is initiated.

  2. Asset Upload: Upload the resulting assets, such as Docker images or zip files containing serverless functions, to a designated repository.

  3. Build Completion: Inform nullplatform once the build process has successfully concluded.

We understand that managing CI/CD pipelines can often be challenging due to their multifaceted nature, which may involve tasks like deployment. Learning new conventions for each tool can also be burdensome. To simplify this process, we encourage the following practices:

  • Streamlined Pipelines: Remove any extraneous tasks from your CI/CD pipeline, focusing solely on building, testing, and uploading assets.

  • Template-Based Workflows: Leverage the pre-built CI/CD pipelines available in each template provided by nullplatform to minimize the need for customization.

  • Utilize exisiting tooling: Take advantage of the CI/CD tooling like our own Github Actions, Gitlab pipelines, etc. that we have thoughtfully provided to further streamline your CI/CD processes.

By adhering to these principles, we aim to make your CI/CD experience with nullplatform as efficient and hassle-free as possible, allowing your teams to concentrate on their core development tasks.