DevOps Cheat Sheet

Updated 2026-04-20

Next Topic: DevOps Culture and Transformation Cheat Sheet

DevOps is a cultural and technical movement that unifies software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) to shorten the systems development lifecycle while delivering features, fixes, and updates frequently in close alignment with business objectives. Born from the need to break down silos between traditionally separate teams, DevOps emphasizes automation, continuous integration and delivery, infrastructure as code, and collaborative workflows. In 2026 the landscape is being reshaped by three converging forces — AI-driven operations (AIOps), platform engineering, and GitOps — pushing teams from manual automation toward autonomous, self-healing pipelines. A critical insight to keep in mind: DevOps is not a set of tools but a philosophy — success depends on cultural buy-in and process discipline as much as technical implementation.

What This Cheat Sheet Covers

This topic spans 29 focused tables and 211 indexed concepts. Below is a complete table-by-table outline of this topic, spanning foundational concepts through advanced details.

Table 1: Core DevOps PrinciplesTable 2: Version Control and Branching StrategiesTable 3: CI/CD Pipeline StagesTable 4: Infrastructure as Code (IaC) ToolsTable 5: Containerization and OrchestrationTable 6: Deployment StrategiesTable 7: GitOps PracticesTable 8: Monitoring and Observability ToolsTable 9: CI/CD ToolsTable 10: Configuration ManagementTable 11: Secret ManagementTable 12: DevSecOps PracticesTable 13: Testing in DevOpsTable 14: Service MeshTable 15: API GatewayTable 16: Database DevOpsTable 17: Cost Optimization (FinOps)Table 18: Platform EngineeringTable 19: Chaos Engineering and ResilienceTable 20: Progressive DeliveryTable 21: Policy as CodeTable 22: Artifact and Package ManagementTable 23: Build ToolsTable 24: Cloud PlatformsTable 25: SRE PracticesTable 26: DORA MetricsTable 27: Logging StrategiesTable 28: AIOps and AI-Driven DevOpsTable 29: Documentation as Code

Table 1: Core DevOps Principles

Principle	Example	Description
Continuous Integration	`git push` triggers build + tests	• Developers merge code to a shared repository multiple times per day • each integration is verified by automated build and testing to detect issues early.
Continuous Delivery	Code auto-deployed to staging after passing tests	• Every code change is automatically prepared for release to production • manual approval may be required before final deployment.
Continuous Deployment	Merged code auto-deploys to production	Extension of Continuous Delivery where every change that passes tests is automatically released to production without human intervention.
Infrastructure as Code	`terraform apply` creates AWS VPC	Infrastructure is provisioned and managed using declarative or imperative code stored in version control, enabling repeatability and versioning.
Automation	Ansible playbook deploys app across 100 servers	Repetitive tasks (builds, tests, deployments, provisioning) are automated to reduce manual errors and accelerate delivery.
Shift Left	Security scans run in developer IDE	Testing, security, and quality checks are moved earlier in the development cycle to catch issues when they're cheaper to fix.

Table 1: Core DevOps Principles

Principle	Example	Description
Continuous Integration	`git push` triggers build + tests	• Developers merge code to a shared repository multiple times per day • each integration is verified by automated build and testing to detect issues early.
Continuous Delivery	Code auto-deployed to staging after passing tests	• Every code change is automatically prepared for release to production • manual approval may be required before final deployment.
Continuous Deployment	Merged code auto-deploys to production	Extension of Continuous Delivery where every change that passes tests is automatically released to production without human intervention.
Infrastructure as Code	`terraform apply` creates AWS VPC	Infrastructure is provisioned and managed using declarative or imperative code stored in version control, enabling repeatability and versioning.
Automation	Ansible playbook deploys app across 100 servers	Repetitive tasks (builds, tests, deployments, provisioning) are automated to reduce manual errors and accelerate delivery.
Shift Left	Security scans run in developer IDE	Testing, security, and quality checks are moved earlier in the development cycle to catch issues when they're cheaper to fix.