Must-Have Mobile CI/CD Strategies for Effective App Deployment

Application Ci/Cd Lifecycle

Series 1 - Continuous Integration

Before we begin, I’d like to remind you that this article is the 1st part of my series on “Must-Have Mobile CI/CD Strategies for Effective App Deployment”, which will focus exclusively on Continuous Integration (CI).

This article aims to delve into the importance of CI in mobile app development, detailing its benefits, key principles, and best practices. Stay tuned as we explore how CI enhances development workflows and ensures the delivery of high-quality mobile applications.

What does Ci/CD stand for?

CI/CD stands for Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery.

Implementing CI/CD for your software product automates the development and release processes. Increased automation enables teams to build faster, reduce risks, and streamline distribution steps.

What Does Continuous Integration Do for Traditional Software Products?

Continuous Integration (CI) is crucial in enhancing traditional software products by automating the integration of code changes into a shared repository. This process ensures early detection of integration errors and promotes a more collaborative and efficient development environment. By automating build and testing procedures, CI helps teams deliver higher-quality software more consistently and rapidly.

How is it different in Mobile Application Development?

Continuous Integration (CI) for mobile applications involves automating the process of integrating code changes from multiple contributors into a shared repository, ensuring that the app is always in a Buildable State.

Maintaining a Buildable State is crucial for mobile application developers, and ensuring the robustness and security of the development branch is essential. Here are some strategies to make the development branch more robust and secure:

Diving Deeper into Continous Integration

When developing new features and testing builds using Continuous Integration (CI), several key aspects need to be taken care of to ensure a smooth and efficient process.

In this article series, I will primarily focus on explaining the development process, covering various aspects of Continuous Integration (CI) and its implementation in mobile application development. This series aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of how CI enhances development workflows, improves code quality, and ensures smoother releases.

Future articles will include in-depth discussions on benchmarking tools used in CI pipelines, highlighting their features, benefits, and how they contribute to optimizing development processes. Stay tuned for insights into selecting the right tools to streamline your CI/CD workflows effectively:)

Before starting to explain the steps, let me remind you of some basics:

• Code Commit: Developers write code and commit their changes to a version control system (e.g., Git). Specific commits trigger the CI pipeline.
• Automated Build: The CI system (e.g., Jenkins, Bitrise, Circleci, Appcircle, Codemagic) automatically checks out the latest code and initiates a build process. This includes compiling the code, resolving dependencies, and generating the executable (APK for Android or IPA for iOS).
• Automated Testing: The CI pipeline runs a suite of automated tests, including unit tests, integration tests, and sometimes UI tests, to ensure that the new code changes do not introduce any bugs or break existing functionality.
• Static Code Analysis: Tools like SonarQube or linting tools are used to analyze the code for potential issues, coding standards violations, and security vulnerabilities.
• Artifact Storage: Once the build and tests are successful, the CI system stores the build artifacts (e.g., APKs, IPAs) in a repository or storage system, making them available for further testing or deployment.
• Continuous Feedback: The CI system provides immediate feedback to developers about the build and test results, highlighting any issues that need to be addressed.
• Monitoring and Logging: CI systems often integrate with monitoring and logging tools to keep track of build performance, test coverage, and other metrics to continuously improve the development process

And now, here’s a comprehensive guide to help manage Feature Development and Testing within a CI environment with end-to-end solution visual

What happens when the PR is raised against the development branch

Continuous Integration Steps

1. Jira Status Update

• Purpose: Automatically update Jira issues to reflect the status of related development tasks.
• Implementation: Use Jira APIs or integrations provided by CI tools to update issue status based on build or deployment outcomes.
• Benefits: Keeps stakeholders informed in real-time about progress and ensures alignment between development and project management.

2. Sonar Checkmarks

• Purpose: Perform static code analysis to detect code quality issues, security vulnerabilities, and maintainability concerns.
• Implementation: Configure SonarQube or similar tools in the CI pipeline to analyze code against predefined quality standards and rules.
• Benefits: Improves code quality, identifies potential risks early in the development process, and ensures adherence to coding best practices.

3. Lint Rules Validation

• Purpose: Validate code against coding style and standards defined by linting rules specific to the programming language.
• Implementation: Integrate linters like Lint for Android or SwiftLint into the CI pipeline.
• Benefits: Ensures consistent coding style across the codebase, prevents common coding errors and enhances readability and maintainability.

4. Unit Test — Code Coverage

• Purpose: Execute automated unit tests to verify the functionality of individual units (e.g., functions, classes) within the application code.
• Implementation: Run unit tests using testing frameworks JUnit / XCTest and measure code coverage.
• Benefits: Validates the correctness of code changes, identifies areas lacking test coverage and ensures sufficient test coverage to minimize regressions.

5. Security Checks

• Purpose: Scan code and dependencies for security vulnerabilities, including outdated libraries and potential threats.
• Implementation: Integrate security scanning tools like Snyk, OWASP Dependency-Check, Apple Security Tools, or commercial solutions into the CI pipeline.
• Benefits: Enhances application security posture by detecting and addressing vulnerabilities early in the development lifecycle, reducing the risk of security breaches.

6. Repository Status Update

• Purpose: Update the status of the source code repository based on CI pipeline outcomes, such as build success or failure.
• Implementation: Use repository hooks or notifications provided by version control systems (e.g., Git, GitHub Actions, Bitbucket Pipelines) to reflect CI pipeline results.
• Benefits: Provides visibility into the health of the codebase, facilitates collaboration among team members, and ensures that all stakeholders are informed about the latest developments.

Summary

Implementing these CI steps ensures that development processes are efficient, consistent, and aligned with best practices. Each step contributes to improving code quality, security, and overall development workflow, ultimately leading to more reliable and maintainable software applications. Integrating these steps into a CI pipeline helps teams deliver high-quality software continuously and reliably.

All looks good, now manual PR Review can start:

I hope these visuals help you with a better understanding of Continuous Integration(CI) Steps.

Up to this point, I have thoroughly explained the continuous integration steps leading up to the moment when the pull request is prepared for manual code review. In the next series, I will continue with more details about CI/CD.

At the end of this article, you can also find my personal preferences with effective Code Review.

Effective Code Review Tips

When engaging in code reviews, adhering to certain practices can significantly enhance the process’s effectiveness and efficiency:

1. Keep Pull Requests Minimal: Ensure each pull request (PR) focuses on a specific, manageable change.
2. Limit Commits: Send fewer than 5 commits per PR, each with a meaningful name that reflects its purpose.
3. Maintain Commit Quality: Each commit should be buildable independently, and changes should align closely with the commit message.
4. Avoid Force Pushes: Refrain from force pushing after a PR has been reviewed to prevent confusion and ensure requested changes align properly with the code.
5. Consistent PR Frequency: Aim to submit at least 1 PR daily. If changes aren’t merge-ready, consider implementing a feature toggle manager to keep development organized.
6. Use Meaningful Tags: Tag PRs with descriptors like “work in progress,” “do not merge,” or “ready to merge” to provide context and guidance to reviewers.
7. Maintain Professionalism: Approach reviews objectively; avoid personalizing feedback or making critiques based on personality. Uphold professionalism at all times.
8. Inclusive Review Process: Encourage all team members to participate in code reviews, regardless of seniority. Emphasize that reviews are opportunities for learning and growth.
9. Seek Feedback Nicely: If a PR is awaiting review, politely approach team members and request their input. Avoid pressuring for approval; instead, ask for a thorough review.

By adhering to these guidelines, teams can foster a collaborative and constructive code review culture that enhances code quality and team cohesion.

Thank you for taking the time to read my article on Continuous Integration Strategies. In the meantime, I am already working on the second series focusing on CI tools. I look forward to sharing it with you in the next article.

https://bitrise.io/blog/post/mobile-ci-cd-a-noobs-guide-for-mobile-app-developers
https://www.infinyon.com/blog/2021/05/bors-confident-merges/
https://appcircle.io/blog/10-operational-business-benefits-of-mobile-ci-cd

https://www.jetbrains.com/teamcity/ci-cd-guide/continuous-integration/