Pipeline
ELI5 — The Vibe Check
A pipeline is like an assembly line at a factory. Your code goes in one end, gets inspected, tested, packaged, and shipped to users at the other end — all automatically. Each station on the line does one specific job, and if any station fails, the whole line stops.
Real Talk
A CI/CD pipeline is a series of automated steps that code changes must pass through from development to production. Typical stages include building, testing, security scanning, and deploying. Pipelines are defined as code and run on every change.
Show Me The Code
stages:
- build
- test
- scan
- deploy
build-job:
stage: build
script: npm run build
When You'll Hear This
"The pipeline failed at the test stage." / "Set up a pipeline that deploys to staging automatically."
Related Terms
Build
A build is the process of turning your development code into something a real computer or browser can run efficiently.
CD (Continuous Delivery / Continuous Deployment)
CD is what happens after CI checks your homework — it automatically delivers your finished work to the real world.
CI (Continuous Integration)
CI is like a robot assistant that instantly checks your homework every time you hand it in.
Deploy
Deploying is taking your code from your computer and making it live on the internet for real users. Before: only you can see it.
Job
A job is one chunk of work in your pipeline, running on its own machine.
Step
A step is the smallest unit of work in a pipeline — a single command or action.