Always use post-commit triggers – Continuous Integration with GitHub Actions and Jenkins

Post-commit triggers help your team significantly. They will not have to log in to the CI server and trigger the build manually. That completely decouples your development team from CI management.

Configure build reporting

You don’t want your development team to log in to the CI tool and check how the build runs. Instead, all they want to know is the result of the build and the build logs. Therefore, you can configure build reporting to send your build status via email or, even better, using a Slack channel.

Customize the build server size

Not all builds work the same in similar kinds of build machines. You may want to choose machines based on what suits your build environment best. If your builds tend to consume more CPU than memory, it will make sense to choose such machines to run your builds instead of the standard ones.

Ensure that your builds only contain what you need

Builds move across networks. You download base images, build your application image, and push that to the container registry. Bloated images not only take a lot of network bandwidth and time to transmit but also make your build vulnerable to security issues. Therefore, it is always best practice to only include what you require in the build and avoid bloat. You can use Docker’s multi-stage builds for these kinds of situations.

Parallelize your builds

Run tests and build processes concurrently to reduce overall execution time. Leverage distributed systems or cloud-based CI/CD platforms for scalable parallelization, allowing you to handle larger workloads efficiently.

Make use of caching

Cache dependencies and build artifacts to prevent redundant downloads and builds, saving valuable time. Implement caching mechanisms such as Docker layer caching or use your package manager’s built-in caches to minimize data transfer and build steps.

Use incremental building

Configure your CI/CD pipeline to perform incremental builds, rebuilding only what has changed since the last build. Maintain robust version control practices to accurately track and identify changes.

Optimize testing

Prioritize and optimize tests by running quicker unit tests before slower integration or end-to-end tests.

Use testing frameworks such as TestNG, JUnit, or PyTest to categorize and parallelize tests effectively.

Use artifact management

Efficiently store and manage build artifacts, preferably in a dedicated artifact repository such as Artifactory or Nexus. Implement artifact versioning and retention policies to maintain a clean artifact repository.

Manage application dependencies

Keep a clean and minimal set of dependencies to reduce build and test times. Regularly update dependencies to benefit from performance improvements and security updates.

Utilize Infrastructure as Code

Utilize Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to provision and configure build and test environments consistently.

Optimize IaC templates to minimize resource utilization, ensuring efficient resource allocation.

Use containerization to manage build and test environments

Containerize applications and utilize container orchestration tools such as Kubernetes to manage test environments efficiently. Leverage container caching to accelerate image builds and enhance resource utilization.