Summary

This article explores critical practices for securing, testing, and maintaining your software projects. We cover:

Dependency Scanning
Security Scanning
Continuous Integration (CI) & Continuous Deployment (CD)
Code Coverage

Dependency and Security Scanning

Dependency and security scanning are essential to catch vulnerabilities before they reach production. By integrating these scans into your CI/CD pipeline, you ensure a proactive defense against potential risks.

What Is Dependency Scanning?

Dependency scanning identifies known vulnerabilities in your project’s libraries and packages.

Detect outdated or insecure dependencies
Automate scans in Azure Pipelines
Stop builds on critical findings

What Is Security Scanning?

Security scanning reviews your source code and configuration for common security flaws.

Analyze code for injection, misconfigurations, and secrets
Integrate with pull requests for immediate feedback

Running scans early in your development cycle helps prevent remediation costs later in production.

Popular Tools

Tool	Scan Type	Integration Example
GitHub Dependabot	Dependency	Automatic PRs for outdated dependencies
Snyk	Dependency & Security	`snyk test --all-projects`
OWASP ZAP	Security	`docker run owasp/zap2docker-stable zap-baseline.py`
Trivy	Container & Files	`trivy filesystem --security-checks vuln,path .`

The image is a slide titled "Dependency and Security Scanning" with a color-coded list of topics related to dependency scanning and security.

Continuous Integration (CI) & Continuous Deployment (CD)

Automated integration and deployment pipelines accelerate delivery while maintaining high quality.

CI/CD Definitions

Continuous Integration (CI): Automatically build and test code on each commit.
Continuous Deployment (CD): Automatically deploy tested code to staging or production.

Testing Strategies in Pipelines

Test Type	Purpose	Example Command
Local Tests	Fast feedback, no external dependencies	`npm test -- --watch`
Unit Tests	Validate individual functions or classes	`pytest tests/unit`
Integration Tests	Validate interactions between components	`pytest tests/integration`
Load Tests	Measure performance under high traffic	`k6 run load-test-script.js`

In Azure Pipelines, you can define multiple stages:

stages:
  - stage: Build
    jobs:
      - job: Compile
        steps:
          - script: dotnet build
  - stage: Test
    dependsOn: Build
    jobs:
      - job: UnitTests
        steps:
          - script: dotnet test --logger trx
      - job: IntegrationTests
        steps:
          - script: dotnet test --filter Category=Integration
  - stage: Deploy
    dependsOn: Test
    jobs:
      - job: Release
        steps:
          - script: az webapp deploy --name myApp --resource-group myRG

Always fail the pipeline on test failures to prevent unverified code from progressing.

Code Coverage

Code coverage measures how much of your source code is exercised by tests. It helps you identify untested areas and improves software quality.

Why Code Coverage Matters

Visibility: Shows untested code paths
Quality: Encourages writing meaningful tests
Metrics: Helps track testing progress over time

Coverage Types

Coverage Type	Description
Statement	Percentage of executed statements
Branch	Coverage of all possible code branches (if/else)
Path	All possible execution paths (rarely used)

Integrating Coverage in Azure Pipelines

- task: DotNetCoreCLI@2
  displayName: 'Run tests with coverage'
  inputs:
    command: test
    projects: '**/*Tests/*.csproj'
    arguments: '--collect:"XPlat Code Coverage"'
- task: PublishCodeCoverageResults@1
  inputs:
    codeCoverageTool: Cobertura
    summaryFileLocation: '$(Agent.TempDirectory)/**/coverage.cobertura.xml'

Interpret coverage reports to guide your testing efforts:

Focus on critical modules with low coverage
Increase branch and path coverage for complex logic
Set realistic coverage targets (e.g., 80–90%)

The image is a slide titled "Understanding Code Coverage," listing topics such as the definition, importance, and best practices of code coverage, each associated with a different color.

Links and References

Watch Video

Orchestration of GitHub Actions and Azure Pipelines

Introduction Designing and Implementing Pipelines

Introduction

Configure Activity Traceability and Flow of Work

Configure Collaboration & Communication

Work with Azure Repos and GitHub

Configuring and Managing Repositories

Design and Implement Pipeline Automation

Design and Implement Pipelines

Implementing an Orchestration Automation Solution

Design and Implement Deployments

Design and Implement Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

Maintain Pipelines

Design and Implement Authentication and Authorization Methods

Design and Implement a Strategy for Managing Sensitive Information in Automation

Implement Security and Validate Code Bases for Compliance

Configure Monitoring for a DevOps Environment

Analyze Metrics

Branching Strategies for Source Code

Design and Implement a Package Management Strategy

Dependency and Security Scanning

What Is Dependency Scanning?

What Is Security Scanning?

Popular Tools

Continuous Integration (CI) & Continuous Deployment (CD)

CI/CD Definitions

Testing Strategies in Pipelines

Code Coverage

Why Code Coverage Matters

Coverage Types

Integrating Coverage in Azure Pipelines

Links and References

Watch Video

​Dependency and Security Scanning

​What Is Dependency Scanning?

​What Is Security Scanning?

​Popular Tools

​Continuous Integration (CI) & Continuous Deployment (CD)

​CI/CD Definitions

​Testing Strategies in Pipelines

​Code Coverage

​Why Code Coverage Matters

​Coverage Types

​Integrating Coverage in Azure Pipelines

​Links and References

Watch Video

Dependency and Security Scanning

What Is Dependency Scanning?

What Is Security Scanning?

Popular Tools

Continuous Integration (CI) & Continuous Deployment (CD)

CI/CD Definitions

Testing Strategies in Pipelines

Code Coverage

Why Code Coverage Matters

Coverage Types

Integrating Coverage in Azure Pipelines

Links and References