What is continuous testing in CI/CD?
Answer
Continuous testing is the practice of running automated tests throughout the CI/CD pipeline — at every stage of development, from code commit to production deployment. Stages: (1) Pre-commit: local unit tests (developer's machine, fast). (2) Commit stage (CI): all unit tests + code quality checks on every commit/PR. (3) Integration stage: integration tests against real databases/services in a test environment. (4) Acceptance stage: E2E tests against a staging environment. (5) Performance stage: load tests (often on a schedule, not every commit). (6) Production: smoke tests after deployment, synthetic monitoring. Each stage gates the next — a failing stage blocks progression. Benefits: fast feedback (defects found close to when they were introduced — cheapest to fix), confidence in deployments, shorter release cycles. Tools: GitHub Actions, Jenkins, GitLab CI, CircleCI, Azure DevOps for orchestrating the pipeline.