What is CI/CD and why is it important?

CI (Continuous Integration) is automatically building and testing code when changes are committed, catching integration issues early. CD (Continuous Delivery/Deployment) automates releasing changes to staging/production. Delivery requires manual approval; Deployment is fully automated. Benefits: faster feedback, reduced risk, consistent releases, smaller changes are easier to debug. Tools: Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, CircleCI. CI/CD pipeline typically includes: build, test, security scan, deploy.