What is the primary purpose of continuous integration (CI)?

The primary purpose of CI is to integrate code/service changes continuously and automatically into the production pipeline.

Companies are now breaking down applications into function-based services, creating tiny services, and making the integration and end-to-end testing occur primarily at the HTTP interaction level.

But what if a service change is tested automatically and continuously with dependent services & production configuration in development?

Would we still need CI?

Or, could we just integrate with a CD tool?

Roost eliminates the need for CI in a unique and left-shifted way

Any changes made in development is tested in disposable and sharable production-ready environments. 

Developers can define production configuration in Roost SaaS Control Plane; Roost will use those configurations to run tests. In that way, Roost handles tests and checks of your changes and then notifies you of any issues or successes.

Once Roost runs those tests for you in a production-like environment, it marks those changes as certified. Once the change is committed and certified, Roost will integrate your change with your existing CD pipeline.

This way, your changes are always production-ready, and the traditional CI phase is not needed anymore. Furthermore, once these changes go to production, the chances of failure are close to none.

Therefore, Roost shortens your development & deployment pipeline and speeds up your changes/releases to production.