CI/CD Pipeline Expertise

When This Applies

Apply this guidance when:

• Creating or modifying CI/CD pipeline configurations
• Setting up automated builds, tests, and deployments
• Choosing deployment strategies
• Optimizing build times
• Managing artifacts and releases

Pipeline Design Principles

Standard Pipeline Stages

Commit → Build → Test → Quality → Deploy (staging) → Deploy (production)

1. Build — Compile, bundle, create artifacts
2. Test — Unit tests, integration tests, e2e tests
3. Quality — Linting, type checking, security scanning
4. Deploy Staging — Deploy to staging environment
5. Deploy Production — Deploy to production (manual gate)

GitHub Actions Template

name: CI/CD Pipeline
on:
  push:
    branches: [development, main]
  pull_request:
    branches: [development]

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 20
          cache: npm
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run build

  test:
    needs: build
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm test -- --coverage
      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: coverage
          path: coverage/

  deploy-staging:
    needs: test
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/development'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment: staging
    steps:
      - run: echo "Deploy to staging"

  deploy-production:
    needs: test
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment: production
    steps:
      - run: echo "Deploy to production"

Deployment Strategies

Blue-Green

• Run two identical environments (blue = current, green = new)
• Deploy to green, test, then switch traffic
• Keep blue running for instant rollback

Canary

• Route 5-10% of traffic to new version
• Monitor error rates and performance
• Gradually increase if healthy
• Roll back immediately if problems detected

Build Optimization

1. Cache dependencies — Use CI cache for node_modules, pip cache
2. Parallel jobs — Run independent tests in parallel
3. Incremental builds — Only rebuild what changed
4. Slim base images — Alpine-based images build faster
5. Skip unnecessary steps — Use path filters to skip irrelevant jobs

Security in Pipelines

• Store secrets in CI/CD secret management (never in code)
• Use short-lived tokens where possible
• Pin action versions to specific SHAs (not tags)
• Run security scanning (dependency audit, SAST) in pipeline
• Restrict who can trigger production deployments