Create CI/CD Pipelines for .NET Applications

Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) have become an important practice for modern software/app development in ASP.NET infrastructure. It automates the building, testing, & deployment of code changes that can improve the productivity & quality of the code and boost the project delivery speed. In this post, I tried to elaborate on how to set up CI/CD pipelines for .NET applications using popular tools like Azure Pipelines and GitHub Actions in simple technical terms.

What is CI/CD?

CI/CD refers to the combination of two practices - continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD).

Continuous Integration (CI)

CI involves merging code changes into a shared repository several times a day. Each check-in triggers an automated build and test process, including unit tests, packaging, etc. This helps catch bugs and issues early in the development cycle before they become difficult to fix.

Continuous Delivery (CD)

The CD takes CI a step further by making sure code changes can be released to production at any time in a sustainable manner. Setting up a robust CI/CD pipeline does more than just automate compiling code and running unit tests. It can automate all the non-coding tasks that turn code into a shippable product. Things like running security scans to catch vulnerabilities, load testing to ensure performance, and automating deployment to staging and production environments. The goal is to get code changes to users quickly in a reliable way, also maintaining the quality.

Benefits of CI/CD

Some key benefits of implementing CI/CD pipelines include:

• Early Bug Detection: Issues are detected during the CI stage itself rather than during the final testing stages.
• Improved Productivity: Developers don't have to manually build, test, and deploy their changes. They can focus on writing code.
• Faster Feedback Loops: Code is tested immediately after check-ins, providing quicker feedback to developers.
• Higher Quality: Automated processes reduce human errors and catch more bugs in the development and testing stages.
• Reliability: Consistent and automated infrastructure and processes improve the quality and reliability of releases.
• Velocity: Code changes can be deployed continuously rather than in big release cycles, improving business responsiveness.

Implementing CI/CD Pipelines

There are various tools available to setup CI/CD for .NET applications. Two popular options are:

Azure Pipelines

Azure Pipelines is a fully managed CI/CD service provided by Microsoft for Visual Studio projects hosted on GitHub, Azure DevOps, or any other Git repo.

It includes templates, tasks, and agents to automate the entire build-test-deploy process. Key steps to set CI/CD for a .NET project using Azure Pipelines include:

1. Create a YAML pipeline configuration file (azure-pipelines.yml) with build, test, and release jobs.
2. Add tasks to restore Nuget packages, build solutions, and run unit tests using dotnet, VSTest, etc.
3. Configure deployment tasks like IIS Web App Deploy Azure App Service Deploy based on infrastructure.
4. Connect the YAML file to the code repository on check-in to trigger automated builds.
5. Set up continuous deployment to QA/prod environments using release pipelines.

Azure Pipelines is cost-effective and scalable and provides integration with other Microsoft tools like Azure DevOps. Plus, it handles infrastructure provisioning as code through Azure Resource Manager templates.

GitHub Actions

GitHub Actions provides YAML-based workflows to define automated CI/CD processes in GitHub repositories directly. Some key actions to configure workflows for .NET include:

1. actions/checkout to fetch source code on trigger
2. actions/setup-dotnet to install and configure .NET Core SDK
3. actions/cache to cache dependencies
4. Build/test tasks: dotnet build/test for unit testing
5. Deployment tasks: FTP Upload, Copy Files to deploy built artifacts
6. Trigger workflows on pull requests, pushes to master, scheduled runs, etc

Workflows are simple, portable across repositories, and allow seamless integration with other GitHub services. However, additional infrastructure needs to be set up for production deployments compared to Azure Pipelines.

7 Stages of Modern CI/CD Pipelines

An effective CI/CD pipeline automates all stages of the software development life cycle. Here are the typical stages:

1. Code Commit

The initial stage is where code changes committed to the source control trigger pipeline run.

2. Continuous Integration

Automated stage of building, testing, and validating code on every commit using tools like Azure Pipelines GitHub Actions.

3. Security Checks

Static analysis, dynamic testing, and code scanning for vulnerabilities.

4. Package & Deploy

Generate artifacts container images. Deploy to non-production environments.

5. Quality Gates

Generate artifacts container images. Deploy to non-production environments.

6. Environment Testing

Tests different environments - QA, load, performance, compatibility.

7. Release Management

Promote verified builds through environments. Blue-green, canary releases to production.

By implementing all these stages, organizations can achieve true continuous delivery from development to production and improve the overall development process speed and quality.

Ending Words

Implementing CI/CD pipelines for .NET applications provides huge advantages in terms of developer productivity, code quality, and faster delivery. Azure Pipelines and GitHub Actions are two powerful options for automation. By following best practices and defining standard pipeline stages, organizations can unlock the benefits of true continuous integration and delivery. .NET Application Development Service providers can help set up and manage these pipelines, ensuring your .NET apps have automated builds, tests, security scanning, and deployments to streamline the software delivery lifecycle. With an expert .NET Development Service overseeing your CI/CD pipeline, your .NET apps can continuously ship value to customers at pace.