What is CI/CD?
| Practice | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Continuous Integration (CI) | Merge often; automatically build and test every change |
| Continuous Delivery | Every green build is releasable; deploy may be manual |
| Continuous Deployment | Every green build deploys to production automatically |
Developer pushes code
↓
CI builds & tests
↓
Artifact ready
↓
Deploy (manual or automatic)
What is Jenkins?
Jenkins is an open-source automation server that runs builds, tests, and deployments — triggered by code changes, schedules, or humans.
Common alternatives: GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, CircleCI. Jenkins shines when you need self-hosted control, rich plugins, and complex on-prem pipelines.
Prefer Pipeline jobs (Jenkinsfile in Git) over freestyle for real projects. Freestyle is fine for learning Day 1–2.