CI/CD Pipelines: Stages and Deployment Patterns

CI/CD Pipelines•Permalink

Stage design, promotions, manual approvals, and deployment strategy examples for safer delivery.

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Core stage patterns

Build predictable multi-stage pipelines.

Multi-stage GitHub Actions workflow

Separate lint, test, build, and deploy into distinct jobs.

↗#

yamlANYstagesjobsdeploy

yaml

jobs:
  lint:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run lint

  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm test

  build:
    needs: [lint, test]
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run build

  deploy:
    needs: build
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - run: ./scripts/deploy.sh

Split work into jobs so failures are obvious and deploys cannot proceed before verification passes.

GitLab stage ordering

Use explicit stages for predictable progression.

↗#

yamlANYstagesgitlab

yaml

stages:
  - lint
  - test
  - build
  - deploy

deploy_production:
  stage: deploy
  script:
    - ./scripts/deploy.sh
  only:
    - main

In GitLab, jobs in later stages wait until earlier stages succeed unless you intentionally relax dependencies.

Always archive reports and clean up

Preserve artifacts even when the pipeline fails.

↗#

groovyANYjenkinsartifactsreports

groovy

post {
  always {
    junit 'reports/junit/*.xml'
    archiveArtifacts artifacts: 'dist/**', fingerprint: true
    cleanWs()
  }
}

`post` blocks keep reporting and cleanup consistent across success and failure states.

Deployment strategy snippets

Model common ways to ship safely.

Staging then production promotion

Require staging verification before production deploy.

↗#

yamlANYpromotionstagingproduction

yaml

jobs:
  deploy_staging:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - run: ./scripts/deploy.sh staging

  smoke_test:
    needs: deploy_staging
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - run: ./scripts/smoke-test.sh https://staging.example.com

  deploy_production:
    needs: smoke_test
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - run: ./scripts/deploy.sh production

Promotion pipelines reduce risk by proving the same build in staging before releasing to production.

Manual production gate in GitLab

Add a human approval step before production deployment.

↗#

yamlANYmanualapprovalgitlab

yaml

deploy_production:
  stage: deploy
  script:
    - ./scripts/deploy.sh production
  when: manual
  only:
    - main

Manual gates are useful for high-risk environments or compliance-heavy teams.

Blue/green deploy flow

Switch traffic after health checks pass on the new environment.

↗#

bashANYblue-greenrelease

bash

./deploy-new-stack.sh
./run-health-checks.sh https://green.example.com
./switch-traffic.sh green
./monitor-release.sh

Blue/green is a deployment pattern rather than a platform feature. Encode the steps in your chosen CI/CD system.

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