Based on the idea that developers should regularly submit their code to a shared repository, so that a working version of the software product could be arbitrarily built at any time. Any defects introduced to the code base should then be detected and traced sooner. CI could be considered a form of integration testing.
The defining features of continuous integration are version control, build automation, and the triggering of tests as part of the build process.
- Version control
- Build automation
- Post-build test automation
Extreme Programming (XP) recommends building mainline code several times per day, and in conjunction with automated unit testing.
References
FOWLER, M. 2000. MartinFowler.com.
Continuous Integration (Original Version). [WWW].
https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/originalContinuousIntegration.html. 30th March 2017.