Build a Real-World CI/CD Pipeline for Node.js using Docker, GitHub Actions, and AWS EC2

Most CI/CD tutorials explain tools in isolation.

In real projects, everything has to work together — application code, containerization, CI/CD automation, and cloud infrastructure.

In this post, I’m sharing a production-style CI/CD pipeline that deploys a Node.js application using Docker, GitHub Actions, and AWS EC2, end to end.

📺 Full video walkthrough (recommended):

👉 https://youtu.be/WwxSNIrW8bk

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Why I Built This

When learning CI/CD, I noticed a common gap:

• One tutorial explains Docker
• Another explains GitHub Actions
• Another explains EC2

But very few show how these pieces connect in a real deployment flow.

This project focuses on:

• Practical setup
• Real deployment sequence
• Automation that mirrors real DevOps teams

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What This Project Demonstrates

• A simple Node.js application
• Dockerizing the application
• CI/CD pipeline using GitHub Actions
• Automated deployment to an EC2 instance
• A repeatable and maintainable workflow

This is not theory — it’s a working pipeline.

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Architecture Overview

text
Developer pushes code
        ↓
GitHub repository
        ↓
GitHub Actions pipeline
  - Build Docker image
  - Run CI steps
  - Deploy to EC2
        ↓
Docker container running on EC2
        ↓
Application available to users