CI/CD pipeline overview

Note

In our Rijkswaterstaat context we use Gitlab as Git tooling, but this can be applied to other tools as well!

To implement the principles of GitOps and our testing philosophy, we use the following CI/CD process:

Continuous Integration Pipeline

The CI pipeline begins when a developer pushes code to a GitLab repository. It includes the following stages:

1. Build: Compiling the code and scan for vulnerabilities.
2. Publish: Publishing build artifacts (e.g., Docker images).
3. Deploy: Deploying artifacts to a test cluster.
4. Test: Running automated tests and collect and store test evidence.
5. Clean: Cleaning up after testing.

Continuous Delivery Pipeline

The CD pipeline is triggered by configuration changes reviewed under the 4-eyes principle. It involves:

1. Deploy: Deploying to the production cluster.
2. Monitor & Operate: Managing and monitoring the deployed application