CI/CD Concepts for Salesforce
By the end of this lesson, you'll be able to:
- Explain what continuous integration and continuous deployment mean
- Describe a realistic CI/CD pipeline for a Salesforce project
- Connect this final lesson back to every module it draws on
Prerequisites: "Branching Strategies for Salesforce Teams"
Continuous Integration: validate automatically
Continuous Integration (CI) means every code change is automatically validated the moment it's pushed — typically: deploy to a fresh scratch org (Lesson 2), run the full test suite (Module 31), and report pass/fail, all without a human manually triggering any of it.
A realistic pipeline, step by step
1. Developer pushes a feature branch and opens a pull request (Module 14)
2. CI automatically: creates a scratch org, deploys the branch's source,
runs every Apex test (Module 31)
3. If tests pass, the PR is eligible for review and merge
4. On merge to develop: deploy to the shared integration sandbox
5. On merge to main: deploy to production (often with a manual approval gate)Every module this course has built toward shows up here: Module 14's PR process, this module's scratch orgs and source deployment, Module 31's automated tests — CI/CD is genuinely the automation of habits this course has already taught, not a separate new discipline.
Continuous Deployment: automate the release too
Continuous Deployment (CD) extends this further — once code passes every check, it deploys automatically, with no manual step at all (sometimes with an approval gate before production specifically, as shown above, which is a common and reasonable middle ground rather than fully automatic production releases).
Exercise
As a comment, name which course module's work each of the three CI/CD pipeline steps (scratch org creation, running tests, PR review) directly builds on.
Show hint
Match each step to this module's earlier lessons or Modules 14/31.
CI/CD Concepts for Salesforce Quiz
My Notes
Log in to keep private notes on this lesson.
Questions about this lesson
No questions yet — be the first to ask.
Log in to ask a question about this lesson.
Summary
This closing lesson ties the whole module together: a CI/CD pipeline automatically validates and deploys every change, combining source tracking, testing, and branching into one automated process.