Question

What are your go-to scripting languages for automating CI CD pipelines and can you share a sample script

Answer 1

A general script automation choice in CI/CD pipelines includes Bash, Python, and Groovy. They cover everything in CI/CD: versatile, widely supported, and perfect for more common CI/CD tools like Jenkins, GitLab CI, or CircleCI. Here's why these languages are so popular in a nutshell:

• Bash: Fit for tiny scripts that run natively on Unix-like operating systems. Fits well for making aliases for functions, moving and renaming files, updating your system to the latest packages, or integrating with other CLI tools.
• Python:Highly readable with an incredibly broad set of libraries, Python is ideal for heavier tasks, such as API integration, data manipulation or when you need cross-platform compatibility.
• Groovy: This is quite commonly used with Jenkins, but its use would be to script in the Jenkins environment, especially to set up and manage Jenkins jobs.

Here’s a simple example of a Bash script to automate a CI/CD pipeline task, such as deploying an application:

This is a very basic example of CI/CD flow. It installs dependencies there, runs tests, builds an app, and then it is deployed to a server on production.

I have found combining languages on a task-by-task basis according to the requirements of the task at hand to be flexible and effective in CI/CD pipelines.