In GitOps, Continuous Deployment (CD) follows after Continuous Integration (CI). CI is responsible

for building and testing application code, while CD automates the delivery and deployment of these

changes into runtime environments. The Git repository serves as the single source of truth, and

when CI merges new changes into the main branch, CD reconciles the state of the environment to

match what is declared in Git.

“GitOps builds on the principles of DevOps by using Git as the source of truth for declarative

infrastructure and applications. CI pipelines handle the integration and testing of code, and CD

pipelines or agents automatically reconcile the desired state in Git with the actual state in the

cluster.”

This shows that CD is triggered after CI to handle deployment automation, ensuring systems remain

in sync with what is declared in version control.

Reference: GitOps Principles (CNCF GitOps Working Group), GitOps Working Group Terminology &

Principles documents.