A Taxonomy of Contextual Factors in Continuous Integration Processes

Numerous studies have shown that Continuous Integration (CI) significantly improves software development productivity. Research has already shown in other fields of software engineering that findings do not always generalize and are often limited to a specific context. So far, research on CI has not differentiated between varying contexts of the studied projects, which includes, for example, varying domains, personnel, technical environments, or cultures. We need to extend the theory of CI by considering the relevant context that will impact how projects approach CI. Although existing studies implicitly touch on context, they often lack a consistent terminology or rely on experience rather than a standardized approach. In this paper, we bridge this gap by developing a taxonomy of relevant contextual factors within the domain of CI. Using grounded theory, we analyze peer-reviewed studies and develop a comprehensive taxonomy of contextual factors of CI that we validate through a practitioner survey. The resulting taxonomy contains multiple levels of details, the main dimensions being Product, Team, Process, Quality, and Scale. The taxonomy offers a structured framework to address the gap in CI research regarding contextual theory. Researchers can use it to describe the scope of findings and to reason about the generalizability of theories. Developers can select and reuse practices more effectively by comparing to other similar projects.