From Code to Cloud: CI/CD with Azure DevOps and ArgoCD

A clean CI/CD pipeline has two distinct jobs: build a verified artifact (CI), and deploy it to the right environment (CD). Mixing these in one pipeline creates fragility. This post shows how Azure DevOps handles CI and ArgoCD handles CD — each doing what it does best.

The split model

CI (Azure DevOps pipelines):

• Compile and test on every push
• Build and tag a Docker image
• Push to Azure Container Registry (ACR)
• Update a Helm values.yaml file in the GitOps repo with the new image tag

CD (ArgoCD):

• Watch the GitOps repo for changes
• Diff the cluster state against the repo
• Apply changes on sync (manual or automated)

The coupling point is the image tag commit to the GitOps repo. CI produces it; ArgoCD consumes it.

Azure DevOps pipeline

trigger:
  branches:
    include: [main]

pool:
  vmImage: ubuntu-latest

variables:
  ACR_NAME: myregistry
  IMAGE_NAME: api-service

stages:
  - stage: CI
    jobs:
      - job: BuildAndPush
        steps:
          - task: Maven@4
            inputs:
              mavenPomFile: pom.xml
              goals: verify
              options: -DskipITs

          - task: Docker@2
            displayName: Build and push image
            inputs:
              command: buildAndPush
              repository: $(ACR_NAME).azurecr.io/$(IMAGE_NAME)
              dockerfile: Dockerfile
              containerRegistry: acr-service-connection
              tags: |
                $(Build.BuildId)
                latest

          - script: |
              TAG=$(Build.BuildId)
              sed -i "s|image.tag:.*|image.tag: \"$TAG\"|" gitops/helm/values.yaml
              git config user.email "ci@company.com"
              git config user.name "Azure DevOps CI"
              git add gitops/helm/values.yaml
              git commit -m "ci: update image tag to $TAG"
              git push
            displayName: Update GitOps repo image tag

The sed + git push step updates the values file. ArgoCD detects the diff and syncs.

ArgoCD Application manifest

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
  name: api-service
  namespace: argocd
spec:
  project: default
  source:
    repoURL: https://github.com/org/gitops-repo
    targetRevision: main
    path: helm/api-service
    helm:
      valueFiles:
        - values.yaml
  destination:
    server: https://kubernetes.default.svc
    namespace: production
  syncPolicy:
    automated:
      prune: true
      selfHeal: true
    syncOptions:
      - CreateNamespace=true

selfHeal: true means ArgoCD will revert manual kubectl changes — good for production discipline. prune: true removes resources that were deleted from the repo.

Environment promotion

For multi-environment setups (dev → staging → prod), maintain separate values-dev.yaml, values-staging.yaml, values-prod.yaml files. CI auto-promotes to dev on every merge; staging and prod require a deliberate tag or pull request merge to the release branch.

This keeps the promotion audit trail in Git, not in Slack messages and tribal knowledge.

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