What does Continuous Delivery (CD) ensure?

Continuous Delivery (CD) is a software development practice that ensures code changes are automatically prepared for release to production. This means that any code that has passed Continuous Integration (CI) tests is validated and ready for deployment into the application environment. The goal of CD is to make deployments predictable and routine, allowing for faster release cycles while maintaining quality through automated testing.

By emphasizing that CI validated code is deployed to the application, this option highlights the critical role of automated testing in ensuring reliability and stability before any code is introduced into production. It verifies that new code integrates well with existing components and behaves as expected in the application.

In contrast, other options do not align with the principles of Continuous Delivery. Thorough documentation is important but not a fundamental aspect of CD itself. Testing solely in production environments is contrary to the preventive measures of CD, which advocate for extensive testing in staging areas. Lastly, making changes without testing undermines the quality assurance that CD aims to uphold, as it could lead to unreliable application performance.