Master CI/CD for Developers: Complete Course Outline (Beginner to Advanced 2025)

 

🚀 Complete CI/CD Course Outline for Developers (Beginner to Advanced)

📌 Introduction

Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment/Delivery (CD) are essential practices in modern software development. CI/CD automates building, testing, and deploying applications, ensuring faster releases, higher quality, and reduced errors. This course outline guides developers from CI/CD fundamentals to advanced DevOps pipelines, covering the latest tools, best practices, and real-world scenarios.

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📘 Detailed Course Outline

Module 1: Introduction to CI/CD

• What is CI/CD and its importance

• Continuous Integration vs Continuous Delivery vs Continuous Deployment

• Benefits of CI/CD for developers and organizations

• Overview of DevOps culture and pipeline automation

• Key CI/CD tools landscape (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Azure DevOps, CircleCI)

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Module 2: Version Control Systems

• Git fundamentals for CI/CD

• Branching strategies (GitFlow, trunk-based development)

• Pull requests, code reviews, and merge strategies

• Tagging and release management

• Integration of Git with CI/CD tools

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Module 3: CI/CD Fundamentals

• Building a simple CI pipeline

• Automated builds and testing

• Code quality checks & linting

• Unit, integration, and automated testing in pipelines

• Build artifacts management

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Module 4: CI/CD Tools Deep Dive

• Jenkins: Pipelines, jobs, plugins, declarative vs scripted pipelines

• GitHub Actions: Workflow files, jobs, runners, secrets

• GitLab CI/CD: .gitlab-ci.yml, runners, stages, variables

• Azure DevOps Pipelines: Build & release pipelines, YAML pipelines

• CircleCI & TravisCI: Configurations, workflows, and deployment

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Module 5: Automated Testing & Quality Assurance

• Unit testing frameworks (JUnit, PyTest, NUnit, etc.)

• Integration testing

• Test coverage & reporting tools

• Static code analysis (SonarQube, CodeClimate)

• Automated security scanning & SAST

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Module 6: Continuous Deployment & Delivery

• Deployment strategies: Blue-Green, Canary, Rolling, Recreate

• Infrastructure as Code (IaC) for automated deployments

• Automated environment provisioning (Terraform, CloudFormation, ARM, Ansible)

• Artifact repositories: Nexus, Artifactory

• Deployment to cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP)

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Module 7: Containerization & CI/CD

• Introduction to Docker & containerization

• Building and managing container images

• Pushing images to Docker Hub / ECR / ACR

• CI/CD pipelines with containerized applications

• Kubernetes deployments via CI/CD

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Module 8: Monitoring, Logging & Feedback

• Monitoring pipeline executions

• Logging and troubleshooting failed pipelines

• Notifications & alerts (Slack, Email, Teams)

• Feedback loops for developers

• Performance optimization in CI/CD pipelines

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Module 9: Security in CI/CD (DevSecOps)

• Secret management in pipelines (Vault, GitHub Secrets, Azure Key Vault)

• Automated vulnerability scanning (Snyk, Trivy)

• Compliance checks in pipelines

• Security gates and approvals

• Container security best practices

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Module 10: Advanced CI/CD Practices

• Multi-branch and multi-environment pipelines

• Parallel and sequential job execution

• Advanced workflow orchestration

• Pipeline as code best practices

• CI/CD for microservices architecture

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Module 11: Latest CI/CD Tools & Features (2024–2025)

• GitHub Copilot integration for pipeline automation

• Jenkins X for Kubernetes-native CI/CD

• GitOps principles with ArgoCD & Flux

• Cloud-native pipelines on AWS CodePipeline, Azure DevOps, GCP Cloud Build

• AI-assisted automated testing & code analysis

• Event-driven pipelines and serverless CI/CD

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📌 Conclusion

CI/CD is critical for modern software development, ensuring faster delivery, improved quality, and reliable deployments. Mastering these pipelines, automation tools, and best practices allows developers to create robust, scalable, and secure applications. With the latest CI/CD tools and cloud-native integrations, this course roadmap equips developers to excel in DevOps-driven organizations.