What Really Happens Inside a CI/CD Pipeline

DevOps Concepts Made Simple — Episode 1

What Really Happens in a CI/CD Pipeline

When you push code to GitHub and Jenkins suddenly wakes up — what actually happens next?

Most engineers know CI/CD exists, but not how it works under the hood.
Let’s simplify it.

⚙️ The Real Flow

Every modern DevOps team runs on two automation loops:

1️⃣ Continuous Integration (CI)
Where your code is built + tested automatically every time you commit.
The goal: catch bugs early, make sure all new changes still work together.

2️⃣ Continuous Delivery / Deployment (CD)
Once tests pass, the system packages and deploys the app automatically.
The goal: ship faster, safer, and without 2 AM manual deploys.

In short:

Code → Build → Test → Package → Deploy → Feedback

CI ensures the code works.
CD ensures that working code reaches users — safely.

🧠 Why It Matters

Before pipelines, releases were manual checklists.
One typo, one missing dependency — and production went down.

Now, every merge triggers a repeatable, auditable workflow.
Developers get feedback in minutes instead of hours.
That’s how DevOps teams ship hundreds of updates every week — confidently.

🔁 Key Takeaway

CI/CD = Automation + Feedback = Speed + Stability

Every time you see a “Build Passed ✅” message, you’re watching that automation loop in action.

🎥 Watch the Full Breakdown

In the next issue, we’ll look at how Docker changed deployments forever — and why every DevOps engineer relies on containers today.

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