Can you explain what is meant by continuous integration in the CI/CD concept?

Continuous Integration (CI) is a software development practice where code changes are regularly and automatically merged into a shared branch of the repository. The main goal is to quickly detect and fix errors, improve code quality, and accelerate the development process.

In CI, developers often make small commits that are automatically checked through builds and tests. If the tests pass successfully, the changes are integrated into the main branch. This helps avoid conflicts and issues during code merging.

An example of a CI process:

1. The developer writes code and makes a commit.
2. The CI system automatically runs the build and tests.
3. If everything is successful, the changes are accepted into the main branch.
4. If there are errors, the developer receives a notification to fix them.

This approach improves product quality and speeds up the release of new versions.