CI/CD Pipeline Flowchart: Commit to Production

Mermaid code

flowchart LR
    A[Push commit] --> B[Lint and unit tests]
    B -->|pass| C[Build image]
    B -->|fail| X[Notify author]
    C --> D[Deploy to staging]
    D --> E[Integration tests]
    E -->|pass| F{Approve release?}
    E -->|fail| X
    F -->|yes| G[Deploy to production]
    F -->|no| H[Hold in staging]
    G --> I[Smoke tests]
    I -->|fail| J[Roll back]
    I -->|pass| K[Done]
    X --> A

Paste this into any tool that renders Mermaid, or into the editor to change the theme and export PNG or SVG. Syntax reference: Flowchart guide.

What this diagram shows

Read this one left to right. Lint and unit tests is the first gate; a failure goes straight to Notify author and loops back to a new push. The Approve release? diamond is the only human step. After Deploy to production, Smoke tests decides between Done and Roll back, so a bad deploy has an explicit exit instead of an implied one.

A flowchart beats a sequence diagram here because the pipeline is about stages and decisions, not about which system talks to which. The horizontal LR layout matches how pipeline UIs draw stages, so the diagram and the tooling look alike.

How to adapt it

• Rename the stage nodes to match your pipeline definition, for example Build image to Compile and package for non-container projects.
• Add a Security scan node between Build image and Deploy to staging if you run dependency or container scanning.
• Remove the Approve release? diamond and connect Integration tests directly to Deploy to production for a continuous deployment setup.
• Group stages with subgraph CI ... end and subgraph CD ... end to show which part runs on every push and which part runs on merge to main.
• Change flowchart LR to flowchart TD if you embed the diagram in a narrow document column.

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