1. Overview
Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) are the dynamic duo of modern software development. They’re all about automating the steps involved in building, testing, and delivering our code. This means fewer errors, faster releases, and happier users getting their hands on new features sooner.
However, setting up a CI/CD pipeline that truly delivers isn’t always a walk in the park. It takes some planning, the right tools, and a willingness to keep refining the process.
In this tutorial, we’ll share some best practices that’ll guide us in building and maintaining a CI/CD pipeline that’s reliable, and efficient, and helps us ship high-quality software with confidence.
2. Embrace Frequent Commits
Regularly committing small, focused changes is an important aspect of a successful CI/CD pipeline. Let’s think of it like saving our progress in a video game — we don’t want to lose hours of work, right?
The same principle applies to coding. By committing frequently, we’re not just backing up our work. We’re also making the whole development process smoother.
Smaller commits mean easier code reviews, faster bug fixes, and less chance of those dreaded merge conflicts when working with others. It’s also a way to get continuous feedback — if something goes wrong, we know exactly where to look.
However, how do we get our team into the habit of committing frequently? First, let’s start by breaking down tasks into bite-sized chunks. Doing this makes them less intimidating and easier to complete and commit.
Furthermore, we need to encourage every member of the team to commit as soon as a piece of functionality is working. Version control tools like Git are our friends here, making it easier to manage changes and collaborate.
3. Ensure Consistent Build Success
Ensuring our builds compile correctly and pass all automated tests consistently is essential for a reliable CI/CD pipeline. When builds pass consistently, we know our code is stable and ready to go.
However, when a build fails, that’s our cue to jump into action:
We have to prioritize fixing it right away. The longer a broken build lingers, the more it disrupts the workflow. Every member of the team should feel responsible for getting the build back on track.
A few key strategies can help. To begin with, we can make sure our automated tests cover all the bases, so they can catch problems early on.
Secondly, if a build does break, we need to communicate clearly — let everyone know what happened and what’s being done to fix it.
Lastly, using tools like Git can help keep track of changes and roll back if needed.
4. Build Once
In the world of CI/CD, there’s a simple yet powerful rule: build software once and deploy it everywhere. This means creating a single, unchanging artifact — the compiled code, packaged application, or deployable bundle — that we use throughout the entire pipeline.
Building once ensures consistency. What we test in development and staging is exactly what goes into production. That is, there are no surprises or inconsistencies. This eliminates the risk of errors creeping in due to multiple builds.
On the other hand, when dealing with different environments with different settings, that’s where external configuration files or environment variables come in handy. They act like a costume change for our software — same artifact, different look depending on the environment.
In addition, tools like Nexus or Artifactory help manage our artifacts. We can see them like a well-organized closet for our software, that stores each version and makes it easy to retrieve them for deployment.
5. Prioritize and Optimize Testing
Testing is the backbone of our CI/CD pipeline. It’s our quality control checkpoint. However, testing isn’t about running every possible test we can think of. Rather, it’s about testing smart. There are different types of tests — unit, integration, system, and acceptance tests — each playing a crucial role.
We can start with unit tests, which are relatively quick and easy tests that check individual pieces of our code. Then, we can move to integration tests, which make sure those pieces work together smoothly.
System tests give us a view of the big picture by testing the entire application as a whole. Finally, acceptance tests confirm that our software does what it’s supposed to do in the real world.
The key is to prioritize. We should run the fastest test first, like unit tests, so that we can get quick feedback. If those pass, we can move on to the more comprehensive tests. It’s like starting with a basic checkup before going for a full medical exam.
6. Use Clean and Consistent Environments
Now that we’ve built our software, let’s talk about where we’re going to deploy it. In the world of CI/CD, clean and consistent environments are important. Each environment should start fresh, without any leftover artifacts from previous tests or deployments. This ensures that our tests are reliable and that we’re not accidentally masking issues due to lingering states.
Ephemeral environments, like containers, are a great way to achieve this. They’re lightweight, easy to spin up and tear down, and they always start in a known state. This means we can run our tests with confidence, knowing that the environment is identical each time.
But consistency goes beyond just the environment itself. We also need to ensure our infrastructure is consistent across different stages of our pipeline. This is where Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) tools like Terraform or Ansible come in handy.
By defining our infrastructure as code, we can easily replicate it in different environments, ensuring that our development, staging, and production environments are as similar as possible.
7. Centralize Deployment Through CI/CD
Let’s take our CI/CD pipeline as the only highway to production. All code changes, big or small, must travel this route:
It might seem tempting to take a shortcut for emergency fixes, but we should resist the urge. By ensuring all deployments go through the pipeline, we’re guaranteeing consistent testing and quality checks. This reduces the risk of unpleasant surprises in our live environment.
It also improves software quality, reduces risk, and speeds up delivery in the long run.
8. Monitor, Measure, and Improve
Just like a car needs regular checkups to keep running smoothly, our CI/CD pipeline needs constant monitoring and tuning. It’s like a feedback loop where we gather data, analyze it, and use those insights to make things even better.
Consequently, we need to keep an eye on key metrics like build success rates, test coverage, deployment time, and more. These metrics say a lot about the health of our pipeline.
When there are a lot of failed builds or tests, it could mean our code is unstable or the tests need some fine-tuning. Slow deployment times might indicate bottlenecks in the process, that require our immediate attention.
Furthermore, analyzing these metrics isn’t just about finding problems. It’s also about identifying opportunities for improvement. Maybe we can speed up our builds by running tests in parallel or by optimizing our infrastructure. The more data we collect, the more insights we gain.
9. Conclusion
In this article, we’ve explored a handful of key CI/CD best practices that can transform the way our team builds and delivers software.
By implementing these strategies, we can be on our way to a faster, more reliable, and more efficient development process.