What Is CI/CD?
CI/CD stands for Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment — automated pipelines that test, build, and ship code changes to production without manual steps.
CI/CD is the practice of automating the path from a committed code change to running software in production. Without it, deploying requires manual steps, human error causes outages, and teams deploy less frequently out of fear.
Continuous Integration (CI): Every code push triggers automated tests, type checks, and linting. If anything fails, the push is rejected before it can break the main branch. The team always has a known-working codebase.
Continuous Deployment (CD): When code passes CI checks and is merged to main, it automatically deploys to production. No manual steps, no "deployment days", no release manager. Every merge is a potential production release.
A typical CI/CD pipeline:
- Developer pushes a branch
- CI runs:
tsc --noEmit,eslint, unit tests - Preview deployment created (Vercel does this automatically per PR)
- PR reviewed and merged to main
- CD deploys to production — usually under 2 minutes on Vercel
Why it matters for solo developers and small teams: The faster the feedback loop, the faster you iterate. On Vercel, every push to main deploys automatically. TypeScript and ESLint catch bugs before they reach users. A 2-person team can ship multiple times a day safely.