CI/CD Pipelines

Foundational skill (2015-2025). See the master guide for context.

Why QA Engineers Must Own Pipeline Knowledge

A test suite that only runs on your laptop does not exist. The pipeline is where tests prove their value -- blocking bad code from reaching users, providing fast feedback to developers, and producing artifacts that help diagnose failures. QA engineers who can configure, optimize, and troubleshoot pipelines are dramatically more effective than those who treat CI/CD as "someone else's job."

Topics Covered

1. Platforms — 01-platforms/

• Platform Overview — comparing GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, and CircleCI
• GitHub Actions Example — a hands-on, production-ready pipeline walkthrough

2. Test Integration — 02-test-integration/

• Testing Pyramid in CI — structuring pipeline stages around the test pyramid
• Artifact Management — collecting, storing, and using test artifacts effectively

3. Optimization — 03-optimization/

• Pipeline Optimization — caching, parallelization, and conditional execution
• Deployment Strategies — blue-green, canary, rolling deployments and where tests fit
• Quality Gates — enforcing standards, anti-patterns, and interview talking points

How to Use This Chapter

Start with the platform overview to understand the landscape, then study the GitHub Actions example to see a real pipeline. Move into test integration to understand what runs where, and finish with optimization and quality gates to make pipelines fast and trustworthy.

Pick one platform and learn it deeply. The concepts transfer across all of them.