🔄CI/CD Pipelines

Automate from commit to production. Master GitHub Actions, Docker builds, Helm deployments, ArgoCD GitOps, manual approvals, and safe rollback strategies.

GitHub Actions ECR + EKS ArgoCD + Gates

Architecture & How It Works 07.1

Classic CI/CD: Source → Build → Test → Security Scan → Package → Deploy. GitOps adds the continuous reconciliation loop where Git is the single source of truth.

graph LR Commit[git push] --> CI[CI Pipeline] CI --> Build[Build + Test + Scan] Build --> Registry[Push to GHCR/ECR] Registry --> CD[CD / GitOps] CD --> Deploy[Deploy to K8s] Deploy --> Observe[Prometheus + Grafana]

Core Components 07.2

Platform	Definition File	Core Concepts
GitHub Actions	.github/workflows/ci.yml	jobs, steps, actions, secrets, matrix, OIDC
ArgoCD	Application + ApplicationSet CR	sync, self-heal, waves, generators
Jenkins	Jenkinsfile	declarative, stages, agent, when
Registry	ECR / GHCR policies	image scanning, lifecycle, signing

WSL Hands-On Lab 07.3

GitHub Actions + Docker + Helm + ArgoCD on kind

.github/workflows/release.yml

name: Build and Deploy
on: [push]
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions: { id-token: write, contents: read }
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: docker/setup-buildx-action@v3
      - name: Build and push
        uses: docker/build-push-action@v5
        with:
          push: true
          tags: ghcr.io/${{ github.repository }}:${{ github.sha }}

$ kind create cluster --name gitops
$ kubectl create ns argocd
$ kubectl apply -n argocd -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/argoproj/argo-cd/stable/manifests/install.yaml

Create GitHub Actions workflow: lint → test → docker build → GHCR
Add Helm upgrade step with image tag from commit SHA
Run local Jenkins container and create pipeline job
Install ArgoCD on kind and create first Application
Practice Killercoda ArgoCD and GitHub Actions scenarios

Real-World Project 07.4

GitHub Actions free tier for Node app

CI only: lint, test, build, push.

Complete: Docker → ECR → EKS via Helm

OIDC auth, matrix strategy, Helm values per environment.

Multi-env ArgoCD + manual gates + Slack + automatic rollback on SLO breach

Troubleshooting 07.5

Check branch filter, repository secrets vs environment secrets, workflow permissions.

Inspect Application events tab, resource diffs, and sync options. Use server-side apply for CRDs.

Use OIDC with assume-role or aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials.

30-Day Roadmap 07.6

WEEK 1

GitHub Actions Core

Workflow syntax & triggers
Secrets & variables
Reusable workflows

WEEK 2

Docker in CI

build-push-action
Build cache
Trivy scanning step

WEEK 3

ArgoCD GitOps

Application CR
Sync policies & waves
ApplicationSets

WEEK 4

Enterprise Delivery

Manual approvals
Rollback automation
Notifications + SLO gates

Deep Dive: Enterprise Pipeline Patterns 07.7

Progressive Delivery

Use Argo Rollouts or Flagger for canary/blue-green. Gate promotions behind automated tests + manual approval. Integrate with PagerDuty or Slack for on-call sign-off.

Rollback Strategy

Always keep previous image tag in Git. Use ArgoCD automated rollback or Helm rollback. Trigger rollback automatically when SLO error budget burns too fast.

Extra commands from this lesson (2) are kept out of this page. Quizzes were not in the source HTML.