10 Must-Have Automated CI/CD Workflows for Mobile App Teams

Feeling Overwhelmed by Mobile CI/CD Workflows?

It can be a challenge to build a streamlined CI/CD process for mobile app delivery. While it’s a worthy goal for the sake of increasing speed and quality, many teams struggle to find the team to fine-tune the process. When demanding project timelines consume short-term bandwidth, it’s not easy to find time to ‘work on the machine’ - which can leave teams feeling stuck ‘working in the machine’.

For quality engineering teams in larger organizations, it can also be difficult to coordinate the cross-department collaboration that’s required to set up CI/CD workflows in the first place. More than likely, direct communication amongst QA, development, and DevOps is needed to establish momentum.

This is why it’s so important to start with the end in mind. If you’re setting out to refine your CI/CD workflow, you will likely need to make an internal case for why it’s essential to take time away from day-to-day operations for the sake of long-term productivity gains.

In this article, we’ll examine 10 of the top  CI/CD workflows that collectively yield value for development, quality engineering, and DevOps teams. Whether you’re starting from square 1 - or even if you have a few workflows already automated - you’ll find new ideas that you can review internally with your team.

With that, let’s dive in.

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1. Continuous Integration (CI)

First, start by establishing establish a robust Continuous Integration (CI) tool to facilitate the development process. This allows developers to integrate code changes frequently, which then enables rapid detection of issues, reduction of integration problems. In turn, this CI/CD workflow will help your team move faster without sacrificing software quality.

Key Actions:

• Implement CI Tools: Use tools like GitHub Actions, GitLab, CircleCI, Bitrise, or Jenkins
• Automate Code Merges: Automatically merge code changes to the main branch after passing tests.
• Run Automated Tests: Ensure all new code is tested before integration to catch issues early.

2. Automated Build Pipeline

Following the establishment of a solid CI process, the next crucial step is to implement an automated build pipeline. Many teams still rely on manual build processes, which are both time-consuming and prone to human error.

By using an automated build pipeline, you can ensure your code is always in a deployable state. With a mechanism for compiling code, initiating tests, and preparing the application for deployment,  it’ll also be easier to maintain consistency and software reliability

On top of that, developers can also start reallocating time spent on manual process to more high-impact tasks.

Key Actions:

• Set Up Build Triggers: Automatically trigger builds on code commits using tools like GitHub Actions
• Automate Build Steps: Include compilation, unit testing, and packaging in your automated pipeline.
• Monitor Build Status: Use dashboards and notifications to keep track of build health.

3. Automated Unit Testing

Once your CI and build processes are established, you can turn your attention to automated unit testing. The main focus here is to embed triggers for kicking off units tests as a post-build action without any manual intervention. This will ensure unit tests run on a frequent basis.

With regular and comprehensive unit testing in place, your team can further improve overall code quality, boost developer productivity, and drive more application stability

Key Actions:

• Integrate Unit Tests: Use frameworks like JUnit, Specflow, NUnit, or XCTest.
• Run Tests on Every Build: Ensure unit tests are part of the CI pipeline.
• Review Test Coverage: Consider using tools like SonarQube to ensure comprehensive test coverage.

4. Automated API Testing

As unit tests complete, your CI tool should next trigger your automated API tests to begin running. If API testing is still a manual process, start by implementing a solution like Postman or SoapUI. Tools like WireMock are also helpful for virtualizing 3rd party in lower level environments.

Continuous API testing provides a few key benefits. First, it helps ensure your app reliably returns expected responses.  You’ll also help ensure the app’s backend services maintain stability under varying network conditions and load. This is important for any application - but is especially true for mobile apps.

Key Actions:

• Implement API Testing Tools: Use Postman, REST Assured, or SoapUI.
• Mock Services: Use tools like WireMock to simulate API responses for more reliable testing.
• Automate API Tests: Run API tests as part of the CI/CD pipeline to validate backend functionality.

5. Deploy to QA Environment & Begin Automated UI Testing

Following the successful completion of unit and API tests, the new build should move into your QA environment of your CI/CD pipeline. Once deployed, your CI tool should trigger execution for your automated UI tests. Assuming you have an automation framework like Appium or Katalon studio in place, some custom integration work will likely be required to tie the solution directly into the CI/CD process.

In the context of mobile, it’s also important to consider what kind of devices you’re running tests against. Virtual devices like simulators and emulators are preferable for developer-driven unit and API tests. To a degree, they can be serviceable for more complex UI tests. However, it’s worth considering that virtual devices can’t fully replicate the behavior of a device’s hardware.

To ensure the mobile app’s new build is performant on a variety of device and OS configurations, make sure your automated UI tests execute against real devices. Platforms like Kobiton, SauceLabs, and BrowserStack simplify device management and make it easier to tie into your CI/CD pipeline.

Key Actions:

• Use UI Testing Tools: Implement tools like Appium, Selenium, or Katalon Studio.
• Execute Against Virtual and Real Devices: Run automated tests against phones and tablets in a real device cloud (like Kobiton, SauceLabs, or BrowserStack)
• Include UI Tests in CI/CD: Run UI tests automatically after builds to catch visual and functional issues.
• Handle Dynamic Content: Use robust locators and self-healing mechanisms to deal with dynamic UI elements.

6. Integration to Test  Management  for Reporting & Traceability

For functional tests in particular, it’s important to establish traceability with other artifacts to demonstrate end to end coverage. Test management tools play a crucial role in linking requirements (or user stories), test cases, test runs, and any associated defects. Fully featured solutions like Tricentis qTest also provide analytics in the form of dashboards and reports, which can be dispersed across key stakeholders for review.

Even if your app team leverages a Jira plug like Zephyr for Jira or X-Ray, they still provide access to API’s, which can be used to parse test run results from your CI/CD pipeline.

Key Actions:

• Sync Test Results: Use APIs to integrate test results from the CI/CD pipeline back into your test management tool.
• Generate Reports: Automatically generate and distribute test reports to stakeholders for review and action.

Key Actions:

• Integrate with Test Management Tools: Sync your CI/CD pipeline with tools like Tricentis qTest, Zephyr for Jira, or X-Ray to ensure traceability and reporting.
• Analyze Test Results: Use analytics and dashboards to review test run results and coverage.

7. Automated Performance Testing

After your UI tests run successfully in the QA environment, the next step in the CI/CD pipeline is to trigger automated performance tests. While smaller-scale load testing may have been conducted during API testing, this stage is meant for more extensive performance testing. This helps ensure the mobile app meets user expectations for factors like speed and responsiveness before it’s deployed into production.

If you don’t have a solution in place, frameworks like K6, NeoLoad, and OctoPerf can mimic real-world workloads by simulating concurrent user traffic and usage patterns. This will allow your team to understand how the app will behave when hundreds or even thousands of users are interacting with it simultaneously.

You can think of it like ‘Proactive Application Performance Monitoring’. In the same way you might use Dynatrace to monitor the app in production, performance testing tools allow you to do so in lower level QA and staging environments.

Here’s one additional suggestion before we continue. While some teams only run performance tests at the end of a test cycle after functional UI tests are completed, we strongly recommend using your CI tool to trigger executions on a recurring basis.

Key Actions:

• Use Performance Testing Tools: Implement tools like JMeter, K6, NeoLoad, or OctoPerf.
• Automate Performance Tests: Schedule performance tests to run regularly in the CI/CD pipeline.
• Analyze Results: Use dashboards to monitor performance metrics and identify bottlenecks.

8. Automated Security Testing

While diving into the specifics of each type of security test is outside the scope of this article, it’s worth underscoring the importance of a comprehensive security testing strategy. This typically includes static analysis, dynamic analysis, and dependency scanning, among others.

Incorporating automated security tests into your CI/CD pipeline also helps to continuously monitor your application for vulnerabilities. By running these tests in both QA and staging environments, you can detect and address security issues early in the development cycle - and then validate fixes before deployment to production.

Key Actions:

• Implement Security Testing Tools: Consider CI-friendly solutions for static analysis, dynamic analysis, etc
• Automate Security Scans: Run security scans automatically as part of the CI/CD pipeline.
• Fix Vulnerabilities Early: Prioritize and address security issues as soon as they are discovered.

9. Initiate Final Rounds of Testing After Deploying to Staging

Once the new build has successfully passed through testing in the QA environment, a manual approval step is recommended as a gate before deploying to staging. After receiving the green light, the CI/CD pipeline can automatically trigger final rounds of testing in the staging environment.

Instead of manually kicking off load tests, end-to-end tests, and security scans, you can leverage your CI tool to orchestrate these tasks. This automation provides more comprehensive validation and frees up more time for final UAT.

Key Actions:

• Manual Approval: Implement a manual approval step before deploying to staging.
• Automate Final Testing: Use your CI tool to automatically run load tests, end-to-end tests, and security scans in the staging environment.
• User Acceptance Testing (UAT): Allocate time for end-users to conduct final UAT, ensuring the build meets their needs and expectations.

10. Deployment to Production

Let’s assume the new build has met acceptable standards after thorough rounds of testing in QA and staging. The final step in your CI/CD pipeline is facilitating a smooth and reliable deployment to production. For obvious reasons, it’s usually preferable to have a manual approval gate before finalizing the release. Still, the deployment process itself should be automated to reduce risks and ensure consistency.

Automated deployment minimizes the chance of errors and downtime, allowing for seamless releases. Techniques like blue-green deployments or canary releases can further reduce downtime and ensure reliable, controlled rollouts. Monitoring tools like New Relic, Datadog, or Prometheus can track deployment health and performance, while automated rollback strategies ensure quick recovery from deployment failures.

Final Recommendations

• Manual Approval: Implement a manual approval step before the final deployment to production.
• Automate Deployment Process: Use deployment tools to automate the deployment to production, ensuring consistency and reliability.
• Implement Blue-Green Deployments: Consider leveraging techniques like blue-green deployments or canary releases to minimize downtime and ensure reliable releases.
• Monitor Deployments: Use monitoring tools like New Relic, Datadog, or Dynatrace to track deployment health and performance.
• Automate Rollback Strategies: Have automated rollback strategies in place to quickly recover from deployment failures.

Conclusion

Implementing just one of these automated workflows can drive notable efficiency gains and productivity boosts. Utilizing all these 9 of these automated workflows in your CI/CD pipeline can dramatically enhance your mobile app development process.

If you’re looking for support in optimizing your CI/CD process, feel free to book a call with one of our experts at Perform to get personalized guidance. We can share additional best practices and review how our services team can accelerate the configuration of your CI/CD pipeline.

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