Continuous intergration

is a process where you build the entire project, run tests, generate documents, and do all the other activities that make software on a regular basis, the more often the better, generally you should build every time you check in code to version control.

The continuous integration server runs on a separate machine, monitoring your check-in to version control.

CI machine should not include the development tool you use to create the project, only the libraries and other frameworks needed to build the application.

If you can build application with a single command on a standalone machine, you obviously have the configuration correct.

Cruise Control 是 Thought Work 的 CI 軟體，其他的還有：
Bamboo, Hudson, TeamCity, LuntBuild.