CI CD Pipelines Cheat Sheet

Updated 2026-07-29

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CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery/Deployment) pipelines automate the process of building, testing, and deploying code, enabling teams to release software faster and more reliably. A pipeline orchestrates a series of automated stages—from code commit through production deployment—ensuring consistent quality checks at every step. Pipelines transform software delivery from manual, error-prone releases into predictable, repeatable workflows that can execute hundreds of times per day. The key mental model: pipelines are declarative workflows that move code from source to production through automated quality gates, where each stage validates the change before it proceeds; in 2026, security scanning, supply chain integrity, and AI-assisted optimization have become first-class pipeline concerns alongside speed and reliability.

What This Cheat Sheet Covers

This topic spans 18 focused tables and 145 indexed concepts, 117 flashcards, 6 practice tests with 172 questions. Below is a complete table-by-table outline of this topic, spanning foundational concepts through advanced details.

Table 1: Core Pipeline StagesTable 2: Pipeline TriggersTable 3: Testing Types in PipelinesTable 4: Deployment StrategiesTable 5: Continuous Delivery vs Continuous DeploymentTable 6: Pipeline Optimization TechniquesTable 7: CI/CD Tools and PlatformsTable 8: Pipeline Configuration ApproachesTable 9: Pipeline Runners and AgentsTable 10: Environment and Secrets ManagementTable 11: Pipeline Approval and GovernanceTable 12: Pipeline Monitoring and ObservabilityTable 13: Pipeline Artifacts and VersioningTable 14: Advanced Pipeline PatternsTable 15: Rollback and Failure HandlingTable 16: Infrastructure as Code in PipelinesTable 17: Pipeline Security PracticesTable 18: Cost Optimization

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Table 1: Core Pipeline Stages

Every pipeline is a sequence of stages that carry a code change from commit to running in production. Walk through them in order: source, build, test, security scan, package, deploy, and post-deployment checks, and you have the skeleton that every CI/CD tool, whatever its syntax, fills in.

Stage	Example	Description
Source	`on: push` `branches: [main]`	Foundation stage that triggers the pipeline when code is committed to version control, starting the automation workflow.
Build	`npm run build` `docker build -t app:${VERSION} .`	• Compiles source code into executable artifacts • performs dependency resolution, transpilation, or containerization.
Test	`npm test` `pytest tests/`	Executes automated tests (unit, integration, E2E) to validate code behavior and catch regressions early.
Security scan	`semgrep scan --config auto` `trivy image app:latest`	• Runs SAST, SCA, and container scans as a dedicated pipeline stage • shift-left approach catches vulnerabilities at the cheapest moment.
Package	`npm pack` `docker push registry/app:${VERSION}`	• Bundles build artifacts into deployable formats (containers, archives, packages) and publishes to artifact repositories • the same artifact is reused for every environment instead of rebuilt, so what ships is exactly what was tested.
Deploy	`kubectl apply -f deployment.yaml` `aws s3 sync ./build s3://bucket`	• Releases artifacts to a target environment (dev, staging, or production, not always production) • may be manual-approval or fully automated.
Post-deployment	`curl https://api.example.com/health` `datadog-ci event`	Performs smoke tests and health checks right after release to confirm the deployment actually works and to trigger observability tooling.

Table 2: Pipeline Triggers

What kicks a pipeline off matters as much as what it does. A push or pull request is the everyday case, but tags drive releases, cron schedules handle nightly jobs, and manual or webhook triggers give you on-demand and event-driven control, while path filters keep monorepos from rebuilding everything on every commit.

Trigger	Example	Description
Push trigger	`on: push` `branches: [main, develop]`	Most common trigger. Runs the pipeline automatically when commits are pushed to matching branches (also fires when a pull request is merged, since a merge creates a push to the base branch).

The rest of this section is part of the full cheat sheet

Table 3: Testing Types in Pipelines

Testing is the quality gate that lets you deploy with confidence, and no single kind of test catches everything. The classic pyramid runs from fast, plentiful unit tests up through integration and end-to-end checks, with security scans (SAST, DAST, SCA), performance, contract, and mutation tests each guarding a different failure mode.

Type	Example	Description
Unit tests	`pytest tests/unit/` `jest --coverage`	• Tests a single function or class in isolation, with fakes standing in for its real collaborators • fastest and most granular level of testing, and should make up the bulk of a healthy test suite.

The rest of this section is part of the full cheat sheet

Table 4: Deployment Strategies

How you release new code is a trade-off between speed, safety, and resource cost. Rolling updates are the default choice for most teams, blue-green trades extra infrastructure for a fast rollback, and canary, feature-flag, and shadow approaches all shrink risk by limiting who or what gets exposed to a change first. Each strategy answers "what happens if this version is broken?" differently.

Strategy	Example	Description
Rolling deployment	`kubectl rollout restart deployment/app` `maxSurge: 1, maxUnavailable: 0`	• Gradually replaces old instances with new ones while some of each stay up to serve traffic • default strategy in Kubernetes, offering a balance of safety and simplicity without needing extra infrastructure.

The rest of this section is part of the full cheat sheet

Table 1: Core Pipeline Stages

Stage	Example	Description
Source	`on: push` `branches: [main]`	Foundation stage that triggers the pipeline when code is committed to version control, starting the automation workflow.
Build	`npm run build` `docker build -t app:${VERSION} .`	• Compiles source code into executable artifacts • performs dependency resolution, transpilation, or containerization.
Test	`npm test` `pytest tests/`	Executes automated tests (unit, integration, E2E) to validate code behavior and catch regressions early.
Security scan	`semgrep scan --config auto` `trivy image app:latest`	• Runs SAST, SCA, and container scans as a dedicated pipeline stage • shift-left approach catches vulnerabilities at the cheapest moment.
Package	`npm pack` `docker push registry/app:${VERSION}`	• Bundles build artifacts into deployable formats (containers, archives, packages) and publishes to artifact repositories • the same artifact is reused for every environment instead of rebuilt, so what ships is exactly what was tested.
Deploy	`kubectl apply -f deployment.yaml` `aws s3 sync ./build s3://bucket`	• Releases artifacts to a target environment (dev, staging, or production, not always production) • may be manual-approval or fully automated.
Post-deployment	`curl https://api.example.com/health` `datadog-ci event`	Performs smoke tests and health checks right after release to confirm the deployment actually works and to trigger observability tooling.

Table 2: Pipeline Triggers

Trigger	Example	Description
Push trigger	`on: push` `branches: [main, develop]`	Most common trigger. Runs the pipeline automatically when commits are pushed to matching branches (also fires when a pull request is merged, since a merge creates a push to the base branch).

Table 3: Testing Types in Pipelines

Type	Example	Description
Unit tests	`pytest tests/unit/` `jest --coverage`	• Tests a single function or class in isolation, with fakes standing in for its real collaborators • fastest and most granular level of testing, and should make up the bulk of a healthy test suite.

Table 4: Deployment Strategies

Strategy	Example	Description
Rolling deployment	`kubectl rollout restart deployment/app` `maxSurge: 1, maxUnavailable: 0`	• Gradually replaces old instances with new ones while some of each stay up to serve traffic • default strategy in Kubernetes, offering a balance of safety and simplicity without needing extra infrastructure.

CI/CD Pipelines Cheat Sheet

Table 1: Core Pipeline Stages

Table 2: Pipeline Triggers

Table 3: Testing Types in Pipelines

Table 4: Deployment Strategies

CI/CD Pipelines Cheat Sheet

Table 1: Core Pipeline Stages

Table 2: Pipeline Triggers

Table 3: Testing Types in Pipelines

Table 4: Deployment Strategies