Cheat SheetsCI/CD & GitHub ActionsFundamentals

Fundamentals — Cheat Sheet

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Cheat Sheet · AiCanCode.org
Fundamentals
CI/CD & GitHub Actions1 topicsQuick revision reference
1

What is CI/CD and Why It Matters

CI/CD automates the path from code commit to production deployment. Continuous Integration catches bugs early; Continuous Delivery/Deployment eliminates manual, error-prone release processes.

  • ✓CI: every commit triggers build + tests to keep main always working.
  • ✓CD (Delivery): artifact is always deployable; human decides when to release.
  • ✓Continuous Deployment: every green build automatically ships to production.
  • ✓Fail fast: run cheapest checks first (lint → unit tests → integration tests → E2E).
  • ✓GitHub Actions triggers on events: push, pull_request, schedule, workflow_dispatch.
  • ✓actions/checkout, actions/setup-node are official actions from GitHub — always use versioned tags (@v4).
CI/CD pipeline stages overview
Developer pushes code

         │

         â–¼

┌──────────────────┐

│  1. SOURCE       │  GitHub/GitLab detects push → triggers pipeline

â””────────┬─────────┘

         │

         â–¼

┌──────────────────┐

│  2. BUILD        │  Compile code, install dependencies, build Docker image

â””────────┬─────────┘  ← fails here if: compile errors, missing deps

         │

         â–¼

┌──────────────────┐

│  3. TEST         │  Unit tests, integration tests, linting, security scan

â””────────┬─────────┘  ← fails here if: tests fail, coverage drops, CVEs found

         │

         â–¼

┌──────────────────┐

│  4. STAGING      │  Deploy to staging environment, run E2E tests

â””────────┬─────────┘  ← fails here if: deployment fails, E2E tests fail

         │

         â–¼

┌──────────────────┐

│  5. PRODUCTION   │  Manual approval (CD) or automatic (Continuous Deployment)

â””──────────────────┘



Key principle: FAIL FAST — catch errors in the cheapest stage (unit tests)

before they reach expensive stages (E2E tests, staging deploy)
Learn this free with Aria, your AI tutor → AiCanCode.org/learn/cicd