What is a software deployment pipeline?
A deployment pipeline is the automated sequence of stages that takes a code change from commit to running in an environment, without a human manually pushing files around.
It typically covers:
- Build — compile or package the code into a versioned, deployable artifact (binary, container image, or archive).
- Test — run automated checks (unit tests, linting, security scans) against that artifact so problems are caught before anything ships.
- Deploy — take the artifact and configure an environment (test, staging, production) to run that specific version. See What is the difference between a deployment and a release? for how "deploy" and "release" differ.
- Verify — healthchecks or integration tests confirm the new version is actually working once it is live.
The point of the pipeline is repeatability: the same steps run the same way every time, so a deployment is a routine, low-risk event rather than a manual, error-prone one. For a walkthrough of building one from scratch, see How do I set up a CI/CD pipeline from scratch?