What are build pipelines?

Going back to the example of the automotive industry from Chapter 2, The Software Supply Chain and SDLC, if we picture an industrial factory in our mind, one typical image would be the assembly line where all the components are put together, tested, and verified to form the final, brand-new product—the pipeline. In the software realm, things are pretty much the same, with the heart of the software factory being the build pipeline(s).

Build pipelines are the processes of taking source code as input and producing artifacts as output. Many pipelines are commonly involved, because each one is used to create a specific component that will be part of the final piece of software.

While build pipelines form the foundation of software production, it is more common today to talk about CI/CD pipelines. These pipelines encompass the series of steps that must be performed to deliver a new version of the software.

Note

Continous delivery and continous...