6 CI/CD Books That Define Continuous Delivery Excellence

Jez Humble and David Farley bring decades of hands-on software engineering experience to this detailed exploration of rapid, reliable software delivery. They lay out an automated approach to build, test, and deployment processes that transforms how you manage releases, emphasizing the deployment pipeline as a core concept. You’ll learn how to coordinate teams across development, testing, and operations, and handle complex infrastructure, data, and configuration challenges with automation. This book suits software developers, operations engineers, and managers seeking to accelerate delivery cycles without sacrificing quality or increasing risk.

What happens when deep experience in software quality meets GitLab CI/CD pipelines? Christopher Cowell, a former GitLab trainer with decades at Accenture, Oracle, and Puppet, challenges the rush to ship mediocre code by advocating for precision and simplicity. This book guides you through setting up GitLab runners, verifying and securing code, and deploying with real-life examples that tackle advanced pipeline features like DAGs and Kubernetes integration. By walking through practical tutorials and self-assessments, you’ll gain hands-on skills to automate and improve your software lifecycle efficiently. If you value thoughtful design and want to elevate your DevOps pipeline beyond basics, this book will serve you well, though newcomers without some DevOps background might find it dense.

This tailored book explores the multifaceted world of Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) by focusing on your unique workflow, technical background, and objectives. It examines essential concepts like pipeline design, automation tools, deployment techniques, and security considerations, all synthesized to match your specific interests. The personalized content reveals how to navigate complex CI/CD environments, integrating foundational principles with nuanced adaptations suited to your projects. By concentrating on your goals, this book delivers a focused learning experience that bridges broad expert knowledge and your individual challenges, helping you grasp and apply CI/CD practices effectively within your context.

What started as a necessity to bridge security gaps in fast-moving software projects became Sai Sravan Cherukuri's focused effort to guide developers and security teams through the complexities of securing CI/CD pipelines. You’ll learn concrete methods to embed security from the earliest stages, including container protection, policy automation via Policy-as-Code, and infrastructure management through Infrastructure-as-Code. The book demystifies collaboration between development and security teams and offers practical illustrations of Web3 technologies enhancing pipeline security. If you’re involved in DevSecOps or responsible for software delivery security, this book equips you with a realistic, technical roadmap to safeguard your CI/CD processes.

When Rafał Leszko first realized how Docker and Jenkins could streamline app development, he set out to capture this synergy in his third edition guide. This book walks you through establishing a robust CI/CD pipeline, teaching you to containerize applications with Docker, configure Jenkins at scale via Kubernetes, and automate deployments with tools like Ansible and Terraform. You'll find practical insights on acceptance testing with Cucumber and managing infrastructure as code, all grounded in real DevOps workflows. If you're aiming to build secure, scalable continuous delivery pipelines without prior DevOps experience, this book offers a clear, hands-on roadmap.

What happens when a seasoned DevOps architect dives deep into Microsoft Azure DevOps Services? Ashish Raj, with his extensive background in engineering and community leadership, unpacks the nuances of Azure DevOps to help you manage the entire software development lifecycle more effectively. You’ll explore how to implement Agile planning with Azure Boards, keep your code organized via Azure Repos, and master CI/CD pipelines through Azure Pipelines. The book also covers administering packages with Azure Artifacts, running Test Plans, and integrating third-party tools, making it a solid guide for anyone involved in Azure DevOps environments. Whether you're an engineer, architect, or product owner, this book offers practical insights tailored to your role.

This tailored book explores the essential steps to build efficient CI/CD pipelines within 30 days, carefully crafted to match your background, tools, and goals. It covers fundamental concepts like pipeline design, integration techniques, and deployment automation, while also diving into the nuances of your chosen software stack. By focusing on your specific interests and experience level, it reveals a personalized pathway through complex CI/CD challenges, making the learning process more relevant and engaging. Each chapter builds progressively, ensuring you understand not only what to do but why it matters, fostering a deeper grasp of pipeline efficiency and reliability.

When seasoned DevOps engineer Henry van Merode examines CI/CD, he goes beyond theory to focus on how pipelines themselves should be built and tested. You’ll learn to treat pipeline development with the same rigor as application code, covering requirements analysis, design using BPMN 2.0 notation, testing strategies, and bottleneck resolution. This book breaks down complex concepts like branching, build, and deployment strategies into concrete examples, featuring a full implementation with real code. If you’re involved in automating software delivery with Jenkins, CircleCI, or Azure DevOps, this guide helps you align pipeline engineering with your team’s workflow and security needs.