Deployment pipeline design

Deployment Pipeline Design

This skill guides CI/CD pipeline design during framework planning, providing templates and best practices for automated build, test, and deployment workflows.

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Pipeline Stages Overview

┌─────────┐   ┌─────────┐   ┌─────────┐   ┌─────────┐   ┌─────────┐
│  Build  │──▶│  Test   │──▶│  Scan   │──▶│  Stage  │──▶│  Prod   │
└─────────┘   └─────────┘   └─────────┘   └─────────┘   └─────────┘
    │             │             │             │             │
    ▼             ▼             ▼             ▼             ▼
 Compile      Unit Tests    Security     Deploy to    Deploy to
 Lint         Integration   SAST/DAST    Staging      Production
 Type Check   E2E Tests     Deps Audit   Smoke Test   Health Check

---

GitHub Actions Template

Basic Node.js Pipeline

# .github/workflows/ci.yml
name: CI/CD Pipeline

on:
  push:
    branches: [main, develop]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]

env:
  NODE_VERSION: '20'

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Setup Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: ${{ env.NODE_VERSION }}
          cache: 'npm'

      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm ci

      - name: Lint
        run: npm run lint

      - name: Type check
        run: npm run type-check

      - name: Build
        run: npm run build

      - name: Upload build artifacts
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: build
          path: dist/

  test:
    needs: build
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Setup Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: ${{ env.NODE_VERSION }}
          cache: 'npm'

      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm ci

      - name: Run unit tests
        run: npm run test:unit -- --coverage

      - name: Run integration tests
        run: npm run test:integration

      - name: Upload coverage
        uses: codecov/codecov-action@v4
        with:
          files: ./coverage/lcov.info

  security:
    needs: build
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Run security audit
        run: npm audit --audit-level=high

      - name: Run SAST
        uses: github/codeql-action/analyze@v3

  deploy-staging:
    needs: [test, security]
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/develop'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment: staging
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Download build
        uses: actions/download-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: build
          path: dist/

      - name: Deploy to staging
        run: |
          # Your deployment command here
          echo "Deploying to staging..."

      - name: Smoke tests
        run: npm run test:smoke -- --env=staging

  deploy-production:
    needs: [test, security]
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment: production
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Download build
        uses: actions/download-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: build
          path: dist/

      - name: Deploy to production
        run: |
          # Your deployment command here
          echo "Deploying to production..."

      - name: Health check
        run: curl -f ${{ vars.PROD_URL }}/health || exit 1

---

GitLab CI Template

# .gitlab-ci.yml
stages:
  - build
  - test
  - security
  - staging
  - production

variables:
  NODE_VERSION: "20"

default:
  image: node:${NODE_VERSION}
  cache:
    paths:
      - node_modules/

build:
  stage: build
  script:
    - npm ci
    - npm run lint
    - npm run type-check
    - npm run build
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - dist/
    expire_in: 1 hour

test:unit:
  stage: test
  script:
    - npm ci
    - npm run test:unit -- --coverage
  coverage: '/Lines\s*:\s*(\d+\.\d+)%/'
  artifacts:
    reports:
      coverage_report:
        coverage_format: cobertura
        path: coverage/cobertura-coverage.xml

test:integration:
  stage: test
  services:
    - postgres:15
    - redis:7
  variables:
    DATABASE_URL: "postgresql://postgres:postgres@postgres/test"
    REDIS_URL: "redis://redis:6379"
  script:
    - npm ci
    - npm run test:integration

security:audit:
  stage: security
  script:
    - npm audit --audit-level=high
  allow_failure: true

security:sast:
  stage: security
  image: returntocorp/semgrep
  script:
    - semgrep --config=auto .

deploy:staging:
  stage: staging
  environment:
    name: staging
    url: https://staging.example.com
  script:
    - echo "Deploying to staging..."
  rules:
    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == "develop"

deploy:production:
  stage: production
  environment:
    name: production
    url: https://example.com
  script:
    - echo "Deploying to production..."
  rules:
    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == "main"
  when: manual

---

Environment Strategy

Environment Progression

Feature Branch → develop → staging → main → production
      │             │          │         │         │
      ▼             ▼          ▼         ▼         ▼
   PR Tests    Integration   QA Test   Final    Live
                  Tests      Manual    Review

Environment Configuration

Environment	Purpose	Data	Access
Development	Local dev	Fake/seed	Developer
CI	Automated tests	Test fixtures	CI only
Staging	Pre-production	Anonymized prod	Team
Production	Live	Real	Restricted

---

Deployment Strategies

Blue-Green Deployment

        ┌─────────────┐
        │  Load       │
        │  Balancer   │
        └──────┬──────┘
               │
       ┌───────┴───────┐
       │               │
┌──────▼──────┐ ┌──────▼──────┐
│   Blue      │ │   Green     │
│  (v1.0)     │ │  (v1.1)     │
│  [ACTIVE]   │ │  [STANDBY]  │
└─────────────┘ └─────────────┘

1. Deploy to Green (standby)
2. Test Green
3. Switch traffic to Green
4. Blue becomes standby

Canary Deployment

        ┌─────────────┐
        │  Load       │
        │  Balancer   │
        └──────┬──────┘
               │
    ┌──────────┼──────────┐
    │          │          │
    ▼ (90%)    ▼ (10%)    │
┌───────────┐ ┌───────────┐
│  Stable   │ │  Canary   │
│  (v1.0)   │ │  (v1.1)   │
└───────────┘ └───────────┘

1. Deploy canary with 10% traffic
2. Monitor metrics
3. Gradually increase to 100%
4. Rollback if issues

Rolling Deployment

Time 0: [v1] [v1] [v1] [v1]
Time 1: [v2] [v1] [v1] [v1]
Time 2: [v2] [v2] [v1] [v1]
Time 3: [v2] [v2] [v2] [v1]
Time 4: [v2] [v2] [v2] [v2]

---

Secrets Management

GitHub Secrets

# Use in workflow
env:
  DATABASE_URL: ${{ secrets.DATABASE_URL }}
  API_KEY: ${{ secrets.API_KEY }}

# Or per-step
- name: Deploy
  env:
    TOKEN: ${{ secrets.DEPLOY_TOKEN }}
  run: deploy.sh

Required Secrets

Secret	Environment	Purpose
DATABASE_URL	staging, production	Database connection
JWT_SECRET	staging, production	Token signing
DEPLOY_TOKEN	CI	Deployment auth
CODECOV_TOKEN	CI	Coverage reporting

---

Pipeline Checklist

Before deploying:

• All tests pass
• Lint clean
• Type check passes
• Security scan clean
• Build succeeds
• Staging smoke tests pass

---

Integration with Framework Developer

During Phase 3 (Planning) or Phase 6 (Integration):

1. Choose CI/CD platform
2. Define environment strategy
3. Create pipeline configuration
4. Set up secrets management
5. Configure deployment targets
6. Document in final report