CI CD Pipeline

CI/CD Pipeline SOP

When to Use

• User wants to set up CI/CD for a project
• User asks about GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, CircleCI, or similar tools
• User wants to automate testing, building, or deployment
• User's pipeline is failing and they need to debug it

Part 1 — Pipeline Anatomy

Every solid pipeline has these stages in order:

Trigger → Lint → Test → Build → Security Scan → Deploy → Notify

Part 2 — GitHub Actions Templates

Template A — Node.js Full Pipeline

name: CI/CD

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

concurrency:
  group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}
  cancel-in-progress: true      # cancel in-flight runs on new push

env:
  NODE_VERSION: "20"
  REGISTRY: ghcr.io
  IMAGE_NAME: ${{ github.repository }}

jobs:
  # ─── Lint ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  lint:
    name: Lint & Type Check
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: ${{ env.NODE_VERSION }}
          cache: "npm"
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run lint
      - run: npm run type-check

  # ─── Test ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  test:
    name: Unit & Integration Tests
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    services:
      postgres:
        image: postgres:16-alpine
        env:
          POSTGRES_USER: testuser
          POSTGRES_PASSWORD: testpass
          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: ${{ env.NODE_VERSION }}
          cache: "npm"
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm test -- --coverage
        env:
          DATABASE_URL: postgresql://testuser:testpass@localhost:5432/testdb
      - uses: codecov/codecov-action@v4
        with:
          token: ${{ secrets.CODECOV_TOKEN }}

  # ─── Build & Push Docker Image ───────────────────────────────────
  build:
    name: Build Docker Image
    needs: [lint, test]
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    outputs:
      image-tag: ${{ steps.meta.outputs.tags }}
      image-digest: ${{ steps.build.outputs.digest }}
    permissions:
      contents: read
      packages: write
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: docker/setup-buildx-action@v3
      - uses: docker/login-action@v3
        with:
          registry: ${{ env.REGISTRY }}
          username: ${{ github.actor }}
          password: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
      - uses: docker/metadata-action@v5
        id: meta
        with:
          images: ${{ env.REGISTRY }}/${{ env.IMAGE_NAME }}
          tags: |
            type=sha,prefix=sha-
            type=ref,event=branch
            type=semver,pattern={{version}}
      - uses: docker/build-push-action@v5
        id: build
        with:
          context: .
          push: true
          tags: ${{ steps.meta.outputs.tags }}
          labels: ${{ steps.meta.outputs.labels }}
          cache-from: type=gha
          cache-to: type=gha,mode=max

  # ─── Deploy to Staging ───────────────────────────────────────────
  deploy-staging:
    name: Deploy → Staging
    needs: build
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment:
      name: staging
      url: https://staging.example.com
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/develop'
    steps:
      - name: Deploy to staging
        run: |
          echo "Deploying ${{ needs.build.outputs.image-tag }} to staging"
          # kubectl set image deployment/app app=${{ needs.build.outputs.image-tag }}
          # or: ssh deploy@staging "docker pull ... && docker-compose up -d"

  # ─── Deploy to Production ────────────────────────────────────────
  deploy-prod:
    name: Deploy → Production
    needs: [build, deploy-staging]
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment:
      name: production
      url: https://example.com
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
    steps:
      - name: Deploy to production
        run: |
          echo "Deploying to production"

Template B — Matrix Strategy (multi-version testing)

jobs:
  test:
    strategy:
      fail-fast: false          # continue other matrix jobs if one fails
      matrix:
        node: ["18", "20", "22"]
        os: [ubuntu-latest, macos-latest]
        exclude:
          - os: macos-latest
            node: "18"         # don't test node 18 on mac
    runs-on: ${{ matrix.os }}
    name: Test (Node ${{ matrix.node }} / ${{ matrix.os }})
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: ${{ matrix.node }}
      - run: npm ci && npm test

Template C — Reusable Workflow

# .github/workflows/reusable-deploy.yml
name: Reusable Deploy

on:
  workflow_call:
    inputs:
      environment:
        required: true
        type: string
      image-tag:
        required: true
        type: string
    secrets:
      DEPLOY_KEY:
        required: true

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment: ${{ inputs.environment }}
    steps:
      - name: Deploy ${{ inputs.image-tag }} to ${{ inputs.environment }}
        run: echo "Deploying..."

# Usage in another workflow:
jobs:
  call-deploy:
    uses: ./.github/workflows/reusable-deploy.yml
    with:
      environment: production
      image-tag: ${{ needs.build.outputs.image-tag }}
    secrets:
      DEPLOY_KEY: ${{ secrets.DEPLOY_KEY }}

Part 3 — Secrets Management

GitHub Actions Secrets

# Access secrets — never echo them
- name: Set up credentials
  env:
    DB_PASSWORD: ${{ secrets.DB_PASSWORD }}
    API_KEY: ${{ secrets.API_KEY }}
  run: ./scripts/configure.sh

# Use environments for different secret scopes
# Settings → Environments → staging / production → Secrets

Secret Scanning

Add to your pipeline to prevent secret leaks:

- name: Scan for secrets
  uses: trufflesecurity/trufflehog@main
  with:
    path: ./
    base: ${{ github.event.repository.default_branch }}
    head: HEAD

Rules for Secrets

• Never hardcode secrets in workflow files
• Never echo $SECRET or print to logs
• Rotate secrets if a workflow run is public and accidentally logged one
• Use ${{ secrets.NAME }} — GitHub automatically masks these in logs

Part 4 — Deployment Strategies

Rolling Update (Kubernetes)

kubectl set image deployment/app app=ghcr.io/myorg/app:sha-abc123
kubectl rollout status deployment/app
kubectl rollout undo deployment/app  # if something goes wrong

Blue-Green

# Maintain two identical environments; switch traffic via load balancer
steps:
  - name: Deploy to Green
    run: deploy.sh green ${{ env.IMAGE_TAG }}
  - name: Smoke test Green
    run: curl -f https://green.example.com/health
  - name: Switch traffic to Green
    run: switch-traffic.sh green
  - name: Keep Blue on standby for rollback

Canary (Argo Rollouts / Flagger)

# Route 10% of traffic to new version, gradually increase
canary:
  steps:
    - setWeight: 10
    - pause: { duration: 5m }
    - setWeight: 50
    - pause: { duration: 10m }
    - setWeight: 100

Part 5 — Common Failure Patterns and Fixes

Agent Instructions

1. Ask the user which CI platform they're using (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, CircleCI, etc.) before generating config
2. Ask what languages and deployment targets are involved
3. Always include caching for dependency installation — it's the biggest speed win
4. Never put secrets in workflow files — always use secrets.*
5. Add concurrency at the top level to avoid wasted runs
6. Suggest adding a smoke test / health check after every deployment step
7. Use environment: with approval gates for production deploys

Source: furkangonel/cowrangler — distributed by TomeVault.