What I Learned Building My First CI Pipeline

I used to deploy everything manually. It wasn't ideal — but it worked. Until one day, I forgot to run tests before deploying to production. The bug wasn't caught until users reported it.

That was the moment I decided to build a proper CI pipeline.

The first version was simple: run tests on every push. Then I added linting, formatting checks, and finally preview deployments.

CI isn't about perfection. It's about catching the obvious before it becomes public.

Looking back, I can't imagine working without it. Now, even for side projects, I set up GitHub Actions on day one.