How to Setup Continuous Integration

Continuous Integration (CI) is a crucial practice in modern software development, fostering a streamlined and collaborative workflow. It involves the frequent integration of code changes into a shared repository, enabling rapid feedback, early bug detection, and efficient collaboration among development teams.

In simpler words, Continuous Integration (CI) is a software development practice that revolves around the frequent and automated integration of code changes into a shared repository. The primary objective is to detect and address integration issues early in the development process. Developers commit code changes to a version control system (e.g. Git) and automated build and test processes are triggered to ensure the reliability and consistency of the codebase.

How to Setup Continuous Integration

Automated Testing as the Foundation for Continuous Integration

The foundation of Continuous Integration lies in automated testing. This initial step involves the establishment of an automated testing framework laying the groundwork for a CI pipeline. Automated tests are fundamental to Continuous Integration as they validate code changes systematically.

Automated testing ensures the reliability and correctness of code changes facilitating a continuous and reliable development process. These tests, including unit, integration, and end-to-end tests help maintain code quality, identify bugs early, and provide swift feedback to developers. Integrating automated testing into the CI pipeline ensures a consistent and reliable software development lifecycle.

Automated Testing Overview

Automated testing consists of various types including unit tests, integration tests, and end-to-end tests. While Unit tests focus on individual components ensuring their functionality. Integration tests verify the interaction between different components and end-to-end tests validate the entire system’s behavior. Running tests automatically involves integrating testing tools into the CI pipeline executing these tests upon code changes and obtaining timely feedback on code quality and functionality.

Different Types of Tests:

Types of Tests

There are numerous test kinds in use, so if you’re just getting started, you don’t have to complete them all at once. Unit tests are a good place to start when you want to gradually expand your coverage.

• Unit Test: Unit tests usually check the behavior of individual methods or functions and have a limited scope.
• Integration Test: Integration tests ensure that various parts operate correctly in unison. Testing the integration with other services and teaching multiple classes may be part of this.
• Acceptance Test: Similar to integration tests, acceptance tests concentrate more on the business cases than the componentry.
• UI Test: UI tests will ensure that the program operates correctly from the user’s point of view.

Since unit tests are primarily used to verify small sections of code, they can be quickly and inexpensively implemented. However, because they frequently need to launch a full environment and several services to simulate browser or mobile behavior, UI tests will be difficult to implement and take a long time to complete. Because of this, you might want to rely on solid unit testing at the foundation and minimize the amount of intricate UI tests to have a quick build and provide developers with feedback as soon as possible.

How to Run Your Tests Automatically?

It is necessary to run your tests on each change that is pushed back to the main branch to implement continuous integration. You will require a service that can keep an eye on your repository and hear about fresh pushes to the codebase to accomplish this. Both on-premises and in the cloud, there are numerous options from which to select. When choosing your server, keep the following things in mind:

Where is your code hosted?

Is your codebase accessible to the CI service? Do you have any unique guidelines regarding the location of the code?

What OS and resources do you need for your application?

Is there support for your application environment? Can you install the necessary dependencies so that your program can be built and tested?

How much resource do you need for your tests?

There may be limitations on the resources you can use with some Cloud applications. You may want to host your CI server behind your firewall if your software uses a lot of resources.

How many developers are on your team?

A lot of changes will be pushed back to the main repository every day when your team practices continuous integration. Reducing the build queue time is necessary to enable developers to receive fast feedback, and you should use a server or service that offers the appropriate concurrency.

Find untested code by using code coverage:

• It’s a good idea to use automated testing in conjunction with a test coverage tool to determine the percentage of your codebase that is covered by your test suite.
• Having a coverage of 80% is a nice goal, but don’t mistake a high coverage percentage for a well-designed test suite. Although a code coverage tool can assist you in identifying untested code, ultimately, the caliber of your tests will determine the outcome.
• If you’re just getting started, use a test coverage tool to identify the crucial areas of your application that do not yet have 100% coverage of your codebase instead of rushing to achieve that goal.

Success Factors While Adopting Continuous Integration:

Though a crucial component of continuous integration, test automation is insufficient on its own. To ensure that developers don’t spend days working on a feature without merging their modifications back into the main branch, you might need to adjust the culture of your team and enforce the green build process.

• Integrate early and often: It is crucial that developers incorporate their changes into the main repository as quickly as possible, regardless of whether they are utilizing feature branches or trunk-based development. You run the danger of having too many conflicts to review when you decide to merge the code back into the main branch if you leave it on a branch or the developer workstation for an extended period of time.
• Keep the build green at all times: Fixing the issue takes precedence if a developer modifies the build for the main branch. It will be more difficult for you to figure out what went wrong with the build the more modifications you make while it’s broken, and you run the danger of adding more errors.
• Write tests as part of your stories: Lastly, you will need to ensure that automated tests are included in every feature that is produced. Although it would appear that you will be slowing down development, in reality, this will significantly cut down on the amount of time your team spends resolving regression or issues that are introduced with each iteration. Additionally, you will be able to confidently make modifications to your codebase because your test suite will be able to quickly verify that every item that has been produced thus far functions as intended.
• Write tests when fixing bugs: There will always be issues in your releases, regardless of how long you’ve had your codebase up and running or how recently you started. To ensure that they don’t happen again, make sure you include tests as you solve them.
• CI will enable your QA Engineers to scale quality: The position of the QA Engineer is another that will alter as continuous integration and automation become more commonplace. They can now devote more time to provide tools to support developers and assisting them in adopting appropriate testing methodologies, as they are no longer need to manually test your application’s insignificant features. Your QA Engineers will be able to concentrate on helping developers build better code and facilitating testing with better tooling and datasets once you begin implementing continuous integration. For difficult use cases, exploratory testing will still be necessary, but it should play a less role in their work.

Steps to Setup Continuous Integration:

Below listed are the steps to setup continuous integration

• Version Control System (VCS): Choose a VCS like Git for efficient code collaboration and version tracking.
• Repository Creation: Establish a repository on a VCS platform (e.g., GitHub) to store and manage the project’s source code.
• Build Automation: Implement a build automation tool (e.g., Jenkins, Travis CI) to automate the build process triggered by code changes.
• Automated Testing: Integrate automated testing tools for unit, integration, and end-to-end tests, ensuring comprehensive code validation.
• Continuous Integration Server Configuration: Configure the CI server to automatically initiate builds and run tests upon code commits.
• Artifact Management: Centralize the storage of build artifacts, enhancing reproducibility and facilitating deployment.
• Notification System: Set up a notification system to alert the development team about build and test results promptly.
• Code Quality Checks: Integrate tools for static code analysis and style checking to maintain coding standards.
• Continuous Deployment (Optional): Extend CI to include continuous deployment, automating the process of deploying tested code to production.

Conclusion:

Implementing Continuous Integration is a crucial step toward improving the efficiency and reliability of your software development process. By automating builds, running tests, and catching issues early, CI contributes to a more robust and stable codebase. Choose the right tools for your project, follow best practices, and continuously refine your CI setup to ensure a seamless development workflow.

FAQ’s on Continuous integration

Question 1: What is the role of a Version Control System (VCS) in setting up Continuous Integration?

Answer: For Continuous Integration, a Version Control System (VCS) plays an important role in tracking changes, facilitating collaboration and seamlessly integrate code changes and trigger automated builds.

Question 2: What are the key benefits of implementing a Notification System in Continuous Integration?

Answer: A Notification System in Continuous Integration serves as a vital communication tool. It promptly alerts development teams about build and test results facilitating quick response to potential issues.

Question 3: How does Artifact Management contribute to the effectiveness of Continuous Integration?

Answer: Artifact Management in Continuous Integration involves centralizing the storage of dependencies and build outputs. Efficient Artifact Management is important for maintaining consistency across development, testing and deployment environments.

Question 4: What role does Continuous Deployment play in extending Continuous Integration practices?

Answer: Continuous Deployment is an extension of Continuous Integration that automates the process of deploying successfully tested code to production. It further accelerates the development lifecycle, minimizing manual intervention and ensuring that validated code changes are seamlessly transitioned into live environments.

Question 5: How can Code Quality Checks be integrated into the Continuous Integration pipeline?

Answer: Integrating Code Quality Checks involves incorporating tools for static code analysis and style checking. Including Code Quality Checks in the CI pipeline contributes to the creation of robust and high-quality software products.