How to Set Up CI/CD
Configure continuous integration and deployment pipelines for automated testing and shipping.
What You'll Learn
This beginner-level guide walks you through how to set up ci/cd step by step. Estimated time: 10 min.
Step 1: Choose your CI/CD platform
Select GitHub Actions for GitHub repos, GitLab CI for GitLab, or Vercel for automatic Next.js deployments.
Step 2: Set up automated testing
Configure your pipeline to run linting, type checking, unit tests, and integration tests on every push.
Step 3: Configure deployment stages
Set up preview deployments for pull requests and automatic production deployments for the main branch.
Step 4: Add environment management
Configure environment variables and secrets for different deployment stages securely.
Step 5: Monitor pipeline health
Track build times, failure rates, and deployment frequency to optimize your pipeline.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which CI/CD platform is best?▾
GitHub Actions for most teams — it's integrated, free for public repos, and has a massive action marketplace. Vercel handles deployment automatically for Next.js.
How fast should my CI pipeline be?▾
Aim for under 5 minutes for PR checks and under 10 minutes for full deployment. Parallelize tests and use caching to speed things up.
Should I deploy on every commit?▾
Deploy to preview on every PR, and to production on every merge to main. This enables fast iteration and quick rollback if issues arise.