Continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery/deployment (CD) are modern software development practices aimed at automating the process of building, testing, and releasing code to improve efficiency and quality. Traditionally, software development involved lengthy manual processes where developers integrated their work infrequently, leading to delays and numerous issues during integration and testing phases. CI/CD addresses these challenges by ensuring that developers commit code changes regularly to a shared branch, allowing for automated testing and integration, which helps to catch defects early and streamline the release process. This approach allows for more frequent updates and a continuous cycle of improvement, as insights from user feedback and production data inform future development. The key difference between continuous delivery and continuous deployment lies in the final release step; continuous delivery involves a manual decision to deploy to production, whereas continuous deployment automates this step, releasing updates automatically if they pass all tests. These practices are supported by a variety of tools that help coordinate the stages of the CI/CD pipeline, making it an essential component of agile development in today's fast-paced software industry.