What is the main purpose of Continuous Integration (CI) in GitLab?

The main purpose of Continuous Integration (CI) in GitLab is to integrate code changes into a shared repository frequently. This process allows developers to merge their individual changes back to the main branch multiple times a day, ensuring that all code alterations are continuously tested and validated. By doing this, CI helps in identifying and resolving issues early in the development cycle, improving code quality and reducing integration challenges that could arise if changes were made in isolation.

Continuous Integration facilitates collaboration among team members by providing a streamlined process for combining everyone's contributions. It typically involves automated testing, which enables developers to receive instant feedback on their changes, ensuring that any defects are captured and addressed promptly. The overarching goal of CI is to make the integration of changes seamless and efficient, allowing teams to focus on building features and fixing issues rather than struggling with complex code merges and conflicts.

While automated deployment, security audits, and increasing release counts are important aspects of modern development workflows, they are not the primary focus of Continuous Integration itself. CI serves as a foundational practice that enables these other processes to occur more effectively within the development lifecycle.