OTB-Continuous-Integration-platform.md

+The role of the Continuous Integration platform is to validate the different
+commits pushed to OTB repository. When commits are pushed, either on the main
+repository or on a fork, the platform triggers a pipeline with several jobs to
+build and test OTB on different configurations.
+
+Depending on where your commit was pushed, different pipelines are created:
+
+* push on a feature branch -> `wip` pipeline
+* push on a feature branch with a merge request (not in WIP) -> `mr` pipeline
+* push on `develop` branch -> `develop` pipeline
+* push on a release branch `release_X.Y` -> `release` pipeline
+
+The `wip` pipeline is the fastest, with only one build job on Linux. The `mr`,
+ `develop` and `release` pipeline are more exhaustive and build on several platforms.
+
+The different pipeline stages are:
+
+* `precheck` : fast build on Linux, no test
+* `prepare` : for configuration using a XDK, update it if SuperBuild has changed
+* `build` : compile, test and package OTB on various platforms
+* `qa` : analyse code quality
+* `report` : send quality reports to SonarQube
+* `deploy` : upload generated binaries and documentation to OTB website
+* `external` : contains the links to CDash submissions
+
+When a pipeline ends, there are two cases:
+
+* if all the jobs succeed, you see a green pipeline, which means no problem was
+  found on your commit.
+* if one job fails, you see a red pipeline, which means something is broken in
+  your commit. The pipeline widget on Gitlab will tell you which job failed. You
+  will also find special jobs "cdash:..." in the stage `external` that provide
+  a link to the [Dashboard](https://cdash.orfeo-toolbox.org/index.php?project=OTB)
+  where you can look more in details into compilation errors and failed tests.
+
+Failed jobs can be retried if you think the failure was not bound to your commit.
+
+What about baseline files? They are now stored in the main OTB repository, under
+`Data` folder. You can update them with a plain commit on your feature branch.
+Note that the data files are tracked with [Git LFS](https://git-lfs.github.com/)
+, so you need to install this extension.
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