Continuous Delivery (CD)

Continuous Delivery (CD) is the process to build, test, configure, and deploy from a build to a production environment. Multiple testing or staging environments create a Release Pipeline to automate the creation of infrastructure and deployment of a new build. Successive environments support progressively longer-running activities of integration, load, and user acceptance testing. Continuous Integration starts the CD process and the pipeline stages each successive environment to the next upon successful completion of tests.

CD may sequence multiple deployment rings for progressive exposure (also known as "controlling the blast radius"). Progressive exposure groups users who get to try new releases to monitor their experience in rings. The first deployment ring is often a canary used to test new versions in production before a broader rollout. CD automates deployment from one ring to the next and may optionally depend on an approval step, in which a decision maker signs off on the changes electronically. CD may create an auditable record of the approval in order to satisfy regulatory procedures or other control objectives.