CI CD Pipeline

⚙️ CI/CD Pipeline — Automated Build, Test & Deploy

Design and implement CI/CD pipelines with lint, test, build, and deploy stages, environment management, caching, and rollback strategies.

Activation

When this skill activates, output:

⚙️ CI/CD Pipeline — Designing your automated pipeline...

Protocol

Step 1: Gather Inputs

• CI platform: GitHub Actions (default), GitLab CI, CircleCI?
• Tech stack: Language, framework, package manager
• Test suite: Unit, integration, e2e? Test runner?
• Deploy target: Railway, Netlify, AWS, Hetzner, Docker registry?
• Environments: dev/staging/prod? Or just prod?
• Monorepo?: Single app or multiple packages?

Step 2: Pipeline Architecture

Standard pipeline stages:
┌──────────┐   ┌──────────┐   ┌──────────┐   ┌──────────┐   ┌──────────┐
│   Lint   │──▶│   Test   │──▶│  Build   │──▶│  Deploy  │──▶│  Verify  │
│          │   │          │   │          │   │ (staging) │   │ (smoke)  │
└──────────┘   └──────────┘   └──────────┘   └──────────┘   └──────────┘
                                                   │
                                             ┌─────▼─────┐
                                             │  Deploy   │
                                             │  (prod)   │
                                             │ [manual]  │
                                             └───────────┘

Environment strategy decision tree:

How many environments do you need?
├── Solo dev / small project → Just `main` → prod (direct deploy)
├── Small team → `main` → staging (auto) → prod (manual approval)
├── Larger team → feature branches → dev (auto) → staging (auto on merge) → prod (manual)
└── Enterprise → feature → dev → QA → staging → canary → prod (gated)

Step 3: GitHub Actions Workflows

Node.js / TypeScript:

# .github/workflows/ci.yml
name: CI

on:
  push:
    branches: [main, develop]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]

concurrency:
  group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}
  cancel-in-progress: true

jobs:
  lint:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 20
          cache: 'npm'
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run lint
      - run: npm run typecheck

  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: lint
    services:
      postgres:
        image: postgres:16
        env:
          POSTGRES_PASSWORD: test
          POSTGRES_DB: testdb
        ports: ['5432:5432']
        options: >-
          --health-cmd pg_isready
          --health-interval 10s
          --health-timeout 5s
          --health-retries 5
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 20
          cache: 'npm'
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm test -- --coverage
        env:
          DATABASE_URL: postgresql://postgres:test@localhost:5432/testdb
      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        if: always()
        with:
          name: coverage
          path: coverage/

  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: test
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 20
          cache: 'npm'
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run build
      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: build
          path: dist/

  deploy-staging:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: build
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
    environment: staging
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/download-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: build
          path: dist/
      # Deploy to your target (Railway, Netlify, etc.)
      - run: echo "Deploy to staging"

  deploy-prod:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: deploy-staging
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
    environment:
      name: production
      url: https://yourapp.com
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/download-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: build
          path: dist/
      - run: echo "Deploy to production"

Python / FastAPI:

name: CI
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  lint-test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: '3.12'
          cache: 'pip'
      - run: pip install -r requirements.txt -r requirements-dev.txt
      - run: ruff check .
      - run: mypy .
      - run: pytest --cov=app --cov-report=xml
      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: coverage
          path: coverage.xml

  build-push:
    needs: lint-test
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: docker/setup-buildx-action@v3
      - uses: docker/login-action@v3
        with:
          registry: ghcr.io
          username: ${{ github.actor }}
          password: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
      - uses: docker/build-push-action@v5
        with:
          push: true
          tags: ghcr.io/${{ github.repository }}:${{ github.sha }}
          cache-from: type=gha
          cache-to: type=gha,mode=max

Go:

name: CI
on: [push, pull_request]

jobs:
  ci:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-go@v5
        with:
          go-version: '1.22'
      - run: go vet ./...
      - run: staticcheck ./...
      - run: go test -race -coverprofile=coverage.out ./...
      - run: go build -o bin/app ./cmd/server

Step 4: Caching Strategies

Docker layer caching (critical for speed):

- uses: docker/build-push-action@v5
  with:
    cache-from: type=gha
    cache-to: type=gha,mode=max

Step 5: Secret Management

# Define secrets in: Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions
# Reference in workflow:
env:
  DATABASE_URL: ${{ secrets.DATABASE_URL }}
  API_KEY: ${{ secrets.API_KEY }}

# Environment-specific secrets:
# Settings → Environments → staging/production → Add secret
# Referenced the same way but only available in jobs with that environment

Rules:

• Never echo secrets in logs: echo ${{ secrets.X }} is masked but avoid it
• Pin third-party actions to SHA, not tag: uses: actions/checkout@abc123 not @v4
• Use GITHUB_TOKEN (auto-generated) where possible instead of PATs
• Rotate secrets on schedule, not just when compromised

Step 6: Deployment Targets

Railway:

deploy:
  steps:
    - uses: railwayapp/railway-github-link@v1
      with:
        railway_token: ${{ secrets.RAILWAY_TOKEN }}

Netlify:

deploy:
  steps:
    - run: npx netlify-cli deploy --prod --dir=dist
      env:
        NETLIFY_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NETLIFY_AUTH_TOKEN }}
        NETLIFY_SITE_ID: ${{ secrets.NETLIFY_SITE_ID }}

Docker Registry (GHCR):

deploy:
  steps:
    - uses: docker/login-action@v3
      with:
        registry: ghcr.io
        username: ${{ github.actor }}
        password: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
    - uses: docker/build-push-action@v5
      with:
        push: true
        tags: ghcr.io/${{ github.repository }}:latest

SSH to VPS (Hetzner, DigitalOcean):

deploy:
  steps:
    - uses: appleboy/ssh-action@v1
      with:
        host: ${{ secrets.SERVER_HOST }}
        username: deploy
        key: ${{ secrets.SSH_PRIVATE_KEY }}
        script: |
          cd /opt/app
          git pull origin main
          docker compose up -d --build

Step 7: Rollback Strategy

# Tag every successful deploy
- run: |
    git tag "deploy-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S)"
    git push origin --tags

# Rollback = redeploy previous tag
# Manual trigger with version input:
on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      rollback_tag:
        description: 'Tag to rollback to'
        required: true

Smoke test after deploy:

verify:
  needs: deploy
  steps:
    - run: |
        for i in 1 2 3 4 5; do
          STATUS=$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" https://yourapp.com/health)
          if [ "$STATUS" = "200" ]; then echo "✅ Health check passed"; exit 0; fi
          echo "Attempt $i: got $STATUS, retrying..."
          sleep 10
        done
        echo "❌ Health check failed after 5 attempts"
        exit 1

Step 8: Output

━━━ CI/CD PIPELINE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

── ARCHITECTURE ──────────────────────────
Stages: lint → test → build → deploy-staging → deploy-prod
Platform: GitHub Actions
Environments: staging (auto), production (manual approval)

── WORKFLOW FILES ─────────────────────────
.github/workflows/ci.yml
[complete YAML]

── SECRETS REQUIRED ──────────────────────
[list of secrets to configure]

── CACHING ───────────────────────────────
[cache strategy and expected speedup]

── ROLLBACK ──────────────────────────────
[rollback procedure]

Anti-Patterns

• Deploying on every push to main without tests: Always gate deploys behind passing tests.
• Using @latest or @main for third-party actions: Pin to SHA for supply chain security.
• Storing secrets in workflow files: Use GitHub Secrets, never hardcode.
• No concurrency control: Multiple deploys racing causes issues. Use concurrency groups.
• Skipping staging: Even for small apps, deploy to staging first and smoke test.
• Massive monolithic workflows: Split into reusable workflows for maintainability.

Escalation

Hand off when:

• Complex multi-region deployment with blue/green or canary strategies
• Compliance requires audit trails on all pipeline executions
• Self-hosted runners need network/security configuration
• Pipeline needs to orchestrate across multiple repositories

Inputs

• Tech stack and test framework
• CI platform preference
• Deploy target(s)
• Environment strategy
• Monorepo structure (if applicable)

Outputs

• Complete workflow YAML files
• Secret configuration list
• Caching strategy
• Rollback procedure
• Smoke test configuration

Level History

• Lv.1 — Base: Multi-stack workflow templates (Node, Python, Go, Rust), environment strategy decision tree, caching by ecosystem, secret management, deployment to 4 targets (Railway, Netlify, GHCR, SSH), rollback strategy, smoke tests. (Origin: MemStack v3.3, Mar 2026)

Source: jtucker9/mystuff — distributed by TomeVault.