Continuous Integration (CI)

What

the practice of automating the integration of code changes from multiple contributors into a single software project.
he CI process is comprised of automatic tools that assert the new code’s correctness before integration.
A source code version control system is the crux of the CI process.
The version control system is also supplemented with other checks like automated code quality tests, syntax style review tools, and more.
development practice that requires developers to integrate code into a shared repository several times a day
the process of automating the build and testing of code every time a team member commits changes to version control

By integrating regularly, you can detect errors quickly, and locate them more easily.
Because you’re integrating so frequently, there is significantly less back-tracking to discover where things went wrong
- can spend more time building features.
Continuous Integration is cheap
No CI, leads to longer periods between integrations. This makes it exponentially more difficult to find and fix problems.
Increase visibility enabling greater communication
Catch issues early and nip them in the bud
Stop waiting to find out if your code’s going to work
- Especially just before deployment
deliver software more rapidly
Waiting days or weeks to integrate code creates many merge conflicts, hard to fix bugs, diverging code strategies, and duplicated efforts.
- CI avoids this by integrating early and often
CI keeps the master branch clean

Maintain a single source repository
Automate the build
- Use a CI tool that has a hook to your git repo on master branch
- Tools like jenkins, teamcity, gocd
Make your build self-testing
Every commit should build on an integration machine
Keep the build fast
Test in a clone of the production environment
Make it easy for anyone to get the latest executable version
Everyone can see what’s happening
Automate deployment

Developers check out code into their private workspaces
When done, commit the changes to the repository
The CI server monitors the repository and checks out changes when they occur
The CI server builds the system and runs unit and integration tests
The CI server assigns a build/binary label to the version of the code it just built
The CI server releases deployable artefacts stored in an artefact repository for testing
The CI server informs the team of the successful build
If the build or tests fail, the CI server alerts the team
The team fixes the issue at the earliest opportunity
Continue to continually integrate and test throughout the project

Last updated 2 years ago