Pipeline Overview

2 min read

Pipeline Overview #

BuildPiper Documentation · Pipeline

BuildPiper enables the intuitive creation of feature-rich delivery pipelines for microservices, monolithic applications, and mobile apps, ensuring seamless, secure, and scalable product releases through a single unified platform.

Managing CI/CD pipelines for microservices, monolithic applications, and mobile apps becomes increasingly complex as the application landscape grows. BuildPiper provides a single platform to govern delivery pipelines across multiple teams, applications, environments, and clusters. Automated CI native checks and complete CI analysis identify defects and vulnerabilities in the initial stages, enabling a quick, compliant, and hassle-free code release.

Industry first: BuildPiper pipelines can manage the delivery process of all apps owned by a team through a single pipeline.

1. Pipeline Constructs #

A BuildPiper pipeline is composed of building blocks – stages, jobs, and steps.

Stage #

A logical grouping of jobs within a pipeline. Stages define when and how jobs run. For example, tests run only after code compilation.

Job #

A series of steps that run sequentially as a unit. Jobs define what to run, for example code compilation or a test run.

Step #

The smallest unit of work in a BuildPiper pipeline. Steps are the atomic operations that make up a job.

Pipeline construct hierarchy showing stages, jobs, and steps

Figure 1: Pipeline construct hierarchy (stages, jobs, and steps)

2. Types of Pipelines #

BuildPiper offers two pipeline types, based on their scope and purpose.

Application Pipeline #

Scoped to a single application. Manages CI/CD for the services that belong to one application’s delivery lifecycle.

Global Pipeline #

Scoped across multiple applications. Handles cross-application orchestration, shared automation, and organisation-wide delivery patterns.

Each type is described in detail in its own document: Application Pipeline and Global Pipeline.

3. Pipeline Capabilities #

BuildPiper’s pipeline capabilities are grouped into four functional areas.

3.1 Authoring & Reach #

How pipelines are created, and which application types and environments they can deliver to.

01
Visual Pipeline Builder

Create and manage CI/CD pipelines through an intuitive UI, YAML & BPCTL with minimal manual configuration.

02
Cross-Technology Macro Pipelines

Manage delivery pipelines for Kubernetes-based apps, cron jobs, VM-based apps, and mobile apps from a unified platform.

03
Multi-Environment Deployments

Promote applications across development, QA, staging, and production environments.

04
Reusable Pipeline Templates

Standardise delivery processes using pre-configured and reusable pipeline templates.

05
Kubernetes-Native Deployments

Native support for Kubernetes workloads, Helm charts, and containerised application delivery.

3.2 Automation & Strategy #

End-to-end automation across build, test, deploy, and release, with execution strategies that suit your risk profile.

01
End-to-End CI/CD Automation

Automate build, test, security validation, approvals, deployments, and release workflows.

02
Deployment Strategies

Support for rolling and canary-based deployment strategies for safer releases.

03
Parallel & Conditional Execution

Accelerate delivery with parallel job execution and condition-based workflow orchestration.

04
Artifact Management

Build once and promote the same artifact across environments to ensure release consistency.

3.3 Governance & Security #

Embed control gates, security scanning, and access policies directly into the pipeline.

01
Approval Gates & Governance

Configure manual approvals, policy controls, and deployment governance workflows.

02
Pre-baked Security & Compliance Plugins

Embed security scanning, compliance checks, and SAST integrations directly into the pipeline.

03
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

Enforce granular access control for users, teams, approvals, and deployment permissions.

3.4 Visibility & Operations #

Operational visibility, integrations with external tools, recovery mechanisms, and the ability to scale across the enterprise.

01
Report View & CSV Rendering

View pipeline-generated reports directly in the UI with built-in CSV rendering, without requiring external downloads.

02
Notifications & Audit Trails

Real-time visibility through alerts, logs, deployment tracking, and audit history.

03
Ticketing Integrations

Standard integration with JIRA and ServiceNow. Create, update, and add comments to a ticket.

04
Rollback & Recovery

Automated rollback and recovery mechanisms for failed or unhealthy deployments.

05
Enterprise Scalability

Centrally manage CI/CD pipelines across multiple teams, applications, environments, and clusters at scale.

06
Pipeline Notifications

Dedicated pipeline-level notification channels. A pipeline notification defines when to notify, whom to notify, and through which channel when a specific pipeline event occurs.