--- name: ContinuousDelivery-index title: Getting started with Continuous Delivery description: Adopt a DevOps or DevSecOps approach by using IBM Cloud® Continuous Delivery, which includes open toolchains that automate the building and deployment of applications. You can get started by creating a simple deployment toolchain that supports development, deployment, and operations tasks. last-updated: 2026-07-23 --- > ## Documentation Index > The table of contents for this documentation set is at https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/ContinuousDelivery?format=markdown > The index for all IBM Cloud docs is at: https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/llms.txt > Use these files to discover more information as needed. # Getting started with Continuous Delivery {: #getting-started} {: support} DevOps Insights will reach end of service and be discontinued on **August 31, 2026**. Continuous Delivery will be discontinued in the following regions on 12 February 2027: **au-syd**, **ca-mon**, **ca-tor**, **us-east**. Code Risk Analyzer will also be discontinued in all regions on that date. If a region has no active usage of these features, the features in that region may be discontinued earlier and stop accepting new instances. [Learn more](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/ContinuousDelivery?topic=ContinuousDelivery-faq_region_feature_consolidation&format=markdown) {: important} Adopt a DevOps or DevSecOps approach by using IBM Cloud® Continuous Delivery, which includes open toolchains that automate the building and deployment of applications. You can get started by creating a simple deployment toolchain that supports development, deployment, and operations tasks. {: shortdesc} If you already have an instance of Continuous Delivery, you can [create a toolchain](https://cloud.ibm.com/devops/create){: external} or [view existing toolchains](https://cloud.ibm.com/devops/toolchains){: external}. {: tip} ## Prerequisites {: #cd_prereqs} Before you can create a continuous delivery toolchain from a template, you must create an instance of Continuous Delivery by selecting it from the IBM Cloud catalog. The toolchain integrates tools for planning, developing, deploying pipelines, and managing your applications. You can always add or remove tools from your toolchains. If you already have toolchains, you can [view existing toolchains](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/ContinuousDelivery?topic=ContinuousDelivery-toolchains_getting_started&format=markdown#viewing_a_toolchain). For more information about working with toolchains, see [Using toolchains](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/ContinuousDelivery?topic=ContinuousDelivery-toolchains-using&format=markdown). ## Step 1: Select a toolchain template {: #select_a_toolchain_template} To quickly find the toolchain template that addresses your specific requirements, select the appropriate checkboxes to filter by deployment target, tools, and practices. {: tip} 1. On the **Create a Toolchain** page, click a [toolchain template](https://cloud.ibm.com/devops/create){: external}. 1. Review the description of the toolchain that you are about to create. Depending on the type of template that you select, you can review this information on the Welcome page or from the About tab. Some templates provide a diagram that shows how each tool is connected to perform the template's objective. The diagram in the following image is an example. When you create a toolchain, the diagram shows each tool integration that is part of the toolchain. ![Toolchain_diagram](images/toolchain_diagram.png){: caption="Toolchain diagram" caption-side="bottom"} ## Step 2: Create a toolchain {: #create_a_toolchain} 1. Review the default information for the toolchain settings: * The toolchain's name identifies it in IBM Cloud. If you want to use a different name, change the toolchain's name. * The region to create the toolchain in. If you want to use a different region, select it from the list of available regions. * The resource group to create the toolchain in. If you want to use a different resource group, select it from the list of available resource groups. 1. Enter the requested information in each section of the template, as required. For more information about configuring the tool integrations, see [Configuring tool integrations](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/ContinuousDelivery?topic=ContinuousDelivery-integrations&format=markdown). 1. Click **Create**. Several steps run automatically to set up your toolchain. The tool integrations that are set up are different depending on which toolchain template you selected. For example, when you create a DevSecOps Continuous Integration (CI) toolchain, these steps are run: * The toolchain is created. * Delivery Pipelines are created and configured based on the information that you provided. * Source control repositories (repos) are configured for your inventory, compliance evidence, issue tracking, and a sample application for you to get started. * DevOps Insights and SonarQube are configured to run automatically in your pipeline. * If you configured a secrets management tool such as IBM® Key Protect for IBM Cloud®, IBM Cloud® Secrets Manager, or HashiCorp Vault, secrets such as API keys are securely stored and retrieved by your pipeline. * If you configured Slack, the toolchain is set up to send notifications about deployment status to the Slack channel that you specified. After the toolchain is created, a notification appears that provides a link to a tutorial to learn more about how to use the template. ## Next steps {: #next_steps} Check out the available [toolchain templates and tutorials](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/ContinuousDelivery?topic=ContinuousDelivery-cd_about&format=markdown). ### Terraform resources and data sources, SDKs, and HTTP APIs {: #terraform_resources} You can use Terraform to create and manage toolchains, tool integrations, and Tekton delivery pipelines *as code*. For more information about using Terraform with Continuous Delivery, see [Setting up Terraform for Continuous Delivery](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/ContinuousDelivery?topic=ContinuousDelivery-terraform-setup&format=markdown) and try the Terraform toolchain template to [Develop a Kubernetes app with Helm toolchain](https://github.com/IBM-Cloud/terraform-provider-ibm/tree/master/examples/ibm-cd-toolchain-simple-helm){: external}. You can use HTTP APIs and programming language SDKs to create, read, update, delete, and more against toolchains, tool integrations, and Tekton delivery pipelines. For more information about these APIs and SDKs, see [Continuous Delivery Toolchain v2](https://cloud.ibm.com/apis/toolchain){: external} and [Continuous Delivery Tekton Pipeline v2](https://cloud.ibm.com/apis/tekton-pipeline){: external} in the [API & SDK reference library](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs?tab=api-docs){: external}.