CI/CD Pipeline Setup: Automate Everything

Manual Deployment Is Dead

FTP-ing files to a server. SSH-ing to pull git changes. Manual migrations. CI/CD eliminates this human error and makes deployments stress-free.

CI vs CD

• CI (Continuous Integration): Auto-test every code change
• CD (Continuous Delivery): Auto-deploy passing code to staging
• Continuous Deployment: Auto-deploy to production

GitHub Actions CI Pipeline

# .github/workflows/ci.yml
name: CI
on:
  push:
    branches: [ main, develop ]
  pull_request:
    branches: [ main ]

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v3
        with:
          node-version: 20.x
          cache: "npm"
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run lint
      - run: npm test
      - run: npm run build

Adding Deployment

  deploy:
    needs: test
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - name: Deploy to server
        uses: appleboy/[email protected]
        with:
          host: ${{ secrets.SERVER_HOST }}
          username: ${{ secrets.SERVER_USER }}
          key: ${{ secrets.SSH_PRIVATE_KEY }}
          script: |
            cd /app
            git pull origin main
            npm ci && npm run build
            pm2 restart app

Best Practices

• Run fast checks first (lint before tests)
• Cache dependencies to speed up builds
• Never store secrets in YAML – use repository secrets
• Notify team on failures (Slack, email)
• Deploy to staging before production