Course Outline

Day 1: CI/CD Fundamentals and Jenkins

Session 1: Introduction to CI/CD and DevOps 

• What is CI/CD? Benefits and key principles
• DevOps lifecycle and the role of automation
• CI/CD tool comparison: Jenkins vs GitHub Actions vs GitLab CI

Session 2: Jenkins Fundamentals

• Session 2: Jenkins Fundamentals
• Understanding jobs, pipelines, and nodes
• Freestyle vs. Pipeline jobs (Declarative vs. Scripted)

Session 3: Creating a CI Pipeline with Jenkins

• Configuring Git integration and webhooks
• Automating build, test, and notification steps
• Introduction to Jenkinsfile and pipeline syntax

Lab Activities:

• Install and configure Jenkins (locally or using Docker)
• Create a basic CI pipeline that pulls from GitHub, builds, and runs tests
• Use Jenkinsfile to define pipeline stages

Day 2: GitHub Actions & Docker Integration

Session 1: GitHub Actions for CI/CD

• What are GitHub Actions and workflows?
• Events, triggers, jobs, and steps
• Using actions from the marketplace

Session 2: Creating Workflows in GitHub Actions

• Build-test-deploy workflow with GitHub Actions
• Secrets and environment variables
• Caching dependencies and running matrix builds

Session 3: Introduction to Docker and Containerization

• What is Docker? Why containers for CI/CD?
• Creating Dockerfiles and building images
• Docker Compose basics for multi-container setups

Lab Activities:

• Set up a GitHub Actions pipeline that runs tests on pull request
• Build and push a Docker image from GitHub workflow
• Use Docker Compose to run a local dev environment

Day 3: End-to-End Automation and Deployment

Session 1: Building CD Pipelines with Jenkins & GitHub Actions

• Automated deployments to test/staging environments
• Artifact handling and versioning
• Notifications and approvals (Slack, email)

Session 2: Deploying Docker Containers

• Pushing images to Docker Hub or GitHub Container Registry
• Deploying containers to cloud (Heroku, AWS EC2, Render, etc.)
• Blue-green and rolling deployments overview

Session 3: Capstone Project + Best Practices

• Build a full CI/CD pipeline: Build → Test → Package → Deploy
• DevSecOps intro: Scan Docker images for vulnerabilities
• CI/CD pipeline monitoring and troubleshooting tips

Lab Activities:

• Complete CI/CD pipeline using Jenkins or GitHub Actions and Docker
• Deploy containerized app to cloud
• Present final project and get peer/instructor feedback