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What is Artifact?

A packaged, versioned output of a build process — such as a Docker image, JAR file, or compiled binary — ready for deployment.

Build artifacts are the deployable outputs of CI/CD pipelines. They are versioned, immutable, and stored in artifact repositories (Docker Hub, AWS ECR, Nexus, Artifactory, GitHub Packages). A single artifact is built once and promoted through environments (dev to staging to production) ensuring consistency. Artifacts include Docker images, language-specific packages (JAR, wheel, gem), compiled binaries, and infrastructure templates. Proper artifact management with version tagging, retention policies, and vulnerability scanning is essential for reliable software delivery.

Related Terms

Infrastructure Drift
The divergence between the actual state of infrastructure and its defined desired state, caused by manual changes or untracked modifications.
Log Aggregation
The process of collecting, centralizing, and indexing log data from multiple sources for unified search and analysis.
Error Budget
The acceptable amount of unreliability allowed for a service, calculated as 100% minus the Service Level Objective.
Docker Compose
A tool for defining and running multi-container Docker applications using a YAML configuration file.
Pipeline as Code
Defining CI/CD pipeline configurations as version-controlled code files rather than through UI-based pipeline builders.
Blue-Green Deployment
A deployment strategy using two identical environments where traffic is switched from the old version to the new one instantly.
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