CD

You might say

Send this CI-passing version to testing first; production needs human approval unless we explicitly choose continuous deployment.

CD keeps verified versions continuously releasable, or releases them to production automatically under defined rules.Continuous delivery keeps a version through the pipeline and ready to release, with a possible human approval before production. Continuous deployment automatically releases to production after gates pass. Both are more than “tests run automatically”; the key difference is whether production keeps a human approval.

Know first

CI Deployment

CDContinuous DeliveryContinuous DeploymentCI/CD

How one passing version branches into delivery and deployment

RELEASE PIPELINEv2.14.0 · commit 8fd21a

Validated

✓Build & test1m 46s

2Deploy to stagingstaging.trip.local

3Deploy to productionNot started

CDFirst identify who approves and which environment receives it.

The human-approval boundary in CD

Continuous delivery retains the release decision: Versions build, test, and become releasable automatically; the team can still review testing, timing, and risk before approving production. Human approval does not make earlier verification manual.

Continuous deployment releases passing gates automatically: When a team explicitly uses continuous deployment, a version reaches production automatically after predefined checks. It needs reliable testing, monitoring, and stopping mechanisms; the label CD alone never proves automatic release is safe.

Quick checkChoose the best answer

After CI passes, a pipeline automatically deploys testing; a product owner checks the page and data, then clicks “release production.” Which kind of CD is this?

Continuous delivery, because production still has an explicit human approvalContinuous deployment, because testing deployment is automaticOnly CI, because the pipeline ran tests

You can say this to an AI Agent

Automatically deploy CI-passing versions to the test environment. Keep production as continuous delivery: show an explicit human approval step only after the test URL and key checks are confirmed; do not default to automatic production release.

Learn next

1Staging→2Monitoring→