Bhavesh Panchal

Posted on Jan 6

I Set Up a Real CI/CD Pipeline in 20 Minutes Using Alibaba Cloud—Here’s How

#cicd #cloud #devops #tutorial

A few weeks ago, I was tired of manually building, testing, and deploying a little side project every time I made a change. You know the drill:

“Did I push the right image?”

“Wait, is this the staging or prod cluster?”

“Why did it work locally but fail in the cloud?!”

So I decided to finally set up a proper CI/CD pipeline. But I didn’t want to wrestle with Jenkins or stitch together five different services. I wanted something simple, integrated, and—ideally—free to start.

That’s when I gave Alibaba Cloud DevOps a shot. And honestly? It surprised me.

In under 20 minutes, I had a working pipeline that:

Builds a Docker image on every git push
Runs tests
Deploys to Kubernetes (ACK) with zero manual intervention

No YAML nightmares. No self-hosted runners. Just… it worked.

Here’s how I did it—and how you can too.

Why I Chose Alibaba Cloud DevOps (And Why You Might Like It)

I’m already using Alibaba Cloud for hosting, so I figured: why not keep everything in one place?

Turns out, their DevOps platform comes with:

A built-in Git repo (like GitHub, but inside Alibaba Cloud)
Visual + YAML pipeline editor
Direct integration with their Kubernetes service (ACK), container registry (ACR), and monitoring tools
Free tier that’s generous enough for personal projects

No extra accounts. No secret management headaches. Just code → build → deploy.

Step 1: Create a Project (Takes 30 Seconds)

Log into the Alibaba Cloud Console, go to Application Services → DevOps, and click Create Project.

I named mine my-tiny-api and chose “Create a new code repository.”

Boom—now I had a Git URL like https://code.aliyun.com/yourname/my-tiny-api.git.

Step 2: Throw in a Simple App

I used a bare-bones Node.js server—nothing fancy.

// index.js
const http = require('http');
http.createServer((req, res) => {
  res.end('Hello from CI/CD land! 🌍\n');
}).listen(8080);

And a minimal package.json with a fake test script (hey, it’s a demo!):

{
  "scripts": {
    "start": "node index.js",
    "test": "echo '✅ All good!'"
  }
}

Then:

git add .
git commit -m "Hello, pipeline!"
git push origin main

Step 3: Build the Pipeline (The Fun Part)

In the DevOps dashboard, I clicked Pipelines → Create Pipeline and picked Custom Pipeline.

Instead of clicking through a UI (though you can!), I switched to YAML mode and pasted this:

version: "0.1"
stages:
  - stage:
      name: Build
      steps:
        - step: build@docker
          name: Build Docker image
          properties:
            dockerfile: |
              FROM node:18-alpine
              WORKDIR /app
              COPY . .
              RUN npm ci --only=production
              CMD ["npm", "start"]
            imageName: registry.cn-hangzhou.aliyuncs.com/my-namespace/my-tiny-api
            imageTag: ${BUILD_NUMBER}

  - stage:
      name: Test
      steps:
        - step: script
          name: Run tests
          properties:
            commands: ["npm test"]

  - stage:
      name: Deploy
      steps:
        - step: deploy@kubernetes
          name: Ship it!
          properties:
            clusterId: "cls-xxxxxx"  # ← your ACK cluster ID
            namespace: "default"
            manifests:
              # Your Deployment + Service YAML goes here
              # (see full example in the expanded version)

🛠️ Gotchas I hit:

Make sure your Container Registry namespace exists

Grant your DevOps project permissions to ACK and ACR (it prompts you!)

Use npm ci, not npm install, for reproducible builds

I clicked Run, held my breath… and watched it build, test, and deploy—successfully!

Step 4: Automate It

Back in pipeline settings, I turned on “Trigger on push to main”.

Now, every time I git push, magic happens:

Code lands in the repo
Pipeline starts automatically
New version is live in my cluster in ~2 minutes

It feels like cheating. In a good way.

Bonus: It’s Not Just for Alibaba Fans

Even if you’re used to GitHub Actions or GitLab CI, give this a look if:

You’re already on Alibaba Cloud
You want less context-switching
You value “it just works” over maximum flexibility

Is it as customizable as Jenkins? No.

Do I care for a small project? Also no.

Sometimes, simplicity is the real superpower.

Final Thoughts

I walked in expecting complexity. I walked out with a working CI/CD pipeline and time to spare.

If you’ve been putting off automating your deployments—especially on Alibaba Cloud—just try it. You might be done before your coffee gets cold.

🔗 Get started: Alibaba Cloud DevOps

(Yes, there’s a free tier!)

Have you tried Alibaba Cloud DevOps?

Or do you swear by another CI/CD tool? I’d love to hear your take in the comments! 👇

—

Built something cool with cloud automation? Share it! We’re all learning.

#devops #cicd #alibabacloud #kubernetes #webdev #beginners #programming #automation

P.S. No, I don’t work for Alibaba—I’m just a dev who hates manual deploys. 😅

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