Chapter 1 · Part 1

Software Delivery Foundations

A focused chapter on software delivery foundations, with practical delivery concerns, trade-offs, and the operational questions behind CI/CD work.

1-1

From an Idea on Your Laptop to an Application People Can Actually Use

Every application starts the same way: as an idea in someone's head. Maybe you want to solve a problem you've noticed, or your team asked you to build

6 min
1-2

Deploy vs Release: Why You Need to Know the Difference

You just finished a new feature on your laptop. The code works, the tests pass, and you feel good about it. Now you need to get it to users. The obvious

5 min
1-3

Why Manual Updates Stop Working After Your First Real Users

You fix a bug on your laptop. You upload the changed file to your server via SCP. You restart the application. The bug is gone. Simple, right?

6 min
1-4

When Manual Deployment Stops Scaling: Why CI/CD Exists

You fix a small bug. You rebuild the application on your laptop. You run tests manually -- clicking through the same screens, checking the same outputs

6 min
1-5

What You Actually Ship: Artifacts and Environments

You write code on your laptop. You push it to a repository. Someone says "deploy it." But what exactly gets deployed? The raw source code sitting in your

5 min
1-6

How to Tell If Your Application Is Actually Running Correctly

You just deployed a new version. The pipeline says green. The artifact landed in production. Now what?

5 min
1-7

The Journey from Code to Production: A Complete Picture

You just finished writing a new feature on your laptop. You tested it locally, it works fine, and you feel confident. But the feature is useless sitting

6 min