Glossary · Automation software engineering and architecture
Continuous delivery (CD)
Also known as: CD
German: Kontinuierliche Bereitstellung (CD)
In software engineering, continuous delivery (CD) is the practice of keeping software in a releasable state at all times by building, testing and preparing every change automatically, so that a release to production can be made at any time through a deliberate, usually manual decision.
- Software engineering
In one sentence
Continuous delivery keeps software releasable at all times; every change is built and tested automatically, and release is a deliberate decision.
Example
Every merged change to the edge software produces a tested, signed release candidate; the product owner decides which candidate goes to customers in the next maintenance window.
How it applies
- Engineering: Continuous delivery builds on Continuous integration (CI) and extends the automated pipeline to staging and release preparation, including packaging, signing and documentation.
- Industrial context: Continuous delivery suits machine and plant software better than fully automatic releases: software is always ready, but installation happens under Change control at a time agreed with production.
- Documentation: In continuous delivery, documentation must be releasable as often as the software. The documentation team should work in the same pipeline, with docs-as-code, automated builds and checks, so each release candidate includes matching release notes and manuals.
Continuous delivery vs. continuous deployment
In continuous delivery, release is a human decision. In Continuous deployment, every change that passes the pipeline goes to production automatically. Both abbreviate to CD, so write out the term when the difference matters. For safety-related functions, a documented Release decision is needed in any case.