What is the concept of continuous integration/continuous delivery pipelining?

Continuous Integration (CI) emphasizes developers merging code changes frequently to a central repository, with each merge triggering an automated build and test process. Continuous Delivery (CD) extends this by automatically preparing validated code for release, often deploying it to a staging or production environment, thus forming a continuous pipeline.

This describes aspects of Agile methodologies, particularly Scrum, which involve time-limited sprints and practices like pair programming, but it does not define CI/CD pipelining.

This describes a traditional waterfall development model, where phases are sequential and strictly dependent, which is antithetical to the iterative nature of CI/CD.

While CI/CD aims for adaptiveness, stating phases are completely independent is inaccurate; instead, they are integrated and automated to flow continuously from development to deployment.