CI/CD Pipelines
Practice this topic in a realistic system design interview
Shipping code to production is not one step. The team has to build the code, test it, package it, deploy it, and make sure the running service is still healthy.
When people do this by hand, small mistakes creep in. Someone skips a command. Someone runs a script from the wrong branch. Someone uses a slightly different local setup than last time. Many broken releases come from these tiny differences.
Loading simulation...
A CI/CD pipeline turns release work into an automated path from a code change to production.
CI, or continuous integration, builds and tests each change. CD, or continuous delivery/deployment, takes the tested result and gets it ready for production, or ships it automatically.
The goal is simple: make releases repeatable, visible, and boring in the best possible way.
This chapter explains what happens at each stage, why packaged builds and quality gates matter, how pipelines are triggered, and the common mistakes that slow teams down.