CI/CD has become a natural part of modern software development, but every platform approaches it differently. In this category, I share practical observations about pipelines, automated checks, deployments, and the workflows that help deliver software with greater confidence.
In ICanUp, I wanted Jira issues to move automatically when a GitLab Merge Request was created and merged, but I did not want automation to own the entire issue lifecycle. I explain why I kept only two automatic transitions, how target branch and current status guards protect the workflow, and why repeated webhook events must remain idempotent.
All VITE_REVERB_* values were present in the server .env, yet the production bundle was still built without them. I traced the problem to the GitLab CI build stage, moved the build-time variables into the correct environment scope, and added fail-fast checks before deployment.
For me, CI/CD is not just automated deployment. In my Laravel project, I use a pipeline that checks code quality, runs tests, builds the frontend, and only then allows the application to move toward deployment.
Sometimes a familiar process can be presented in a completely different way. That's exactly what I noticed when I first worked with a different CI/CD tool.