Lesson 5 / 23
Typical Pipeline Stages
Walk through the build, test and deploy stages most pipelines share, and build the artifact only once.
Build
The build stage compiles or bundles the code and installs dependencies, producing a concrete artifact (a binary, a Docker image, a JS bundle) that later stages will test and deploy.
Test
The test stage runs automated checks — unit tests, integration tests, linting — against the build. If anything fails, the pipeline stops here and the change never reaches deploy.
Deploy
The deploy stage ships the tested artifact to an environment — staging first, then production, either automatically (Continuous Deployment) or behind a manual approval (Continuous Delivery).
Order matters
Always build once and reuse the same artifact through test and deploy — never rebuild at each stage. Rebuilding risks testing one thing and shipping a subtly different one.