Continuous integration/ continuous deployment, often abbreviated as CI/CD, is a methodology that provides an automated way to build, package, and test applications. With CI/CD, changes to the application can be rapidly and reliably delivered to a production environment. Continuous integration involves regularly merging code changes into a central repository where automated builds and tests run. Continuous deployment automates the push of these changes to production after the build and test phases are successfully completed, thus ensuring a streamlined release process.