Implementation Guide of Software Development Best Practices Based on DevOps

Software development processes face the constant challenge of improving quality controls within the project's construction without affecting operational efficiency and meeting customer needs. DevOps offers a potential solution by enabling software development with the best practices; however, the disadvantage of frameworks such as DevOps is that they indicate that they create the practices, but not how to implement them through precise guidelines and under specific tools, leaving this step to an experimental process of trial and error, which can sometimes be costly. To address that issue, this article proposes a guide that facilitates the step-by-step adoption of five practices: version control, change requests controlled with manual code inspection, continuous integration, static code analysis, and implementing an automated pipeline for continuous integration. The methodology involves: 1) identifying software development best practices and organizing them into a step-by-step process that allows for phased implementation; 2) detailing the steps to implement each practice with specific technologies; 3) practical application; and 4) analysis and discussion of the results. The guide was presented to students, who used it to develop a short course project. Implementing the guide's practices allowed them to recognize that the information from different tools allows for quality control as the project evolves, making the process more efficient.