CIS

CIs is an acronym that can denote more than one concept depending on the disciplinary context. In statistics, CIs commonly stand for confidence intervals, which quantify uncertainty around an estimated parameter. In software engineering, CIs often refer to continuous integration, a practice that automates building and testing code whenever changes are committed. The plural form CIs is used when referring to multiple intervals or multiple CI pipelines.

In statistics, a confidence interval is a range derived from sample data that, under repeated sampling, would contain the true population parameter a specified proportion of the time, known as the confidence level (for example, 95%). The interval is constructed from an estimator and its sampling distribution and relies on assumptions such as randomness of the sample and model correctness. Confidence intervals communicate precision and support inference, but they do not guarantee that the true parameter lies within the interval for any single sample, and misinterpretation can occur if the level or method is chosen improperly.

In software development, continuous integration is a practice where code changes are frequently merged into a shared repository and automatically built and tested. The goal is to detect integration errors early, improve software quality, and shorten delivery cycles. A typical CI workflow includes version control, automated builds, and automated test suites, with rapid feedback to developers. CI is often part of broader pipeline strategies such as continuous delivery and continuous deployment. Effective CI requires maintainable test suites and reliable infrastructure, and its success depends on disciplined, frequent integration and monitoring.