diff --git a/.gitlab-ci.yml b/.gitlab-ci.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..80df616
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitlab-ci.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+stages:
+  - test
+  - deploy
+
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------
+# Stage 1: DevSecOps Vulnerability Scanning
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------
+security_scan:
+  stage: test
+  image:
+    name: aquasec/trivy:0.49.1
+    entrypoint: [""]
+  script:
+    # Scan the application docker image for High and Critical vulnerabilities
+    - trivy image --severity HIGH,CRITICAL nginxdemos/hello:plain-text
+
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------
+# Stage 2: Automated GitOps Deployment
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------
+deploy_application:
+  stage: deploy
+  image: docker:24.0.7-cli
+  script:
+    # FIXED: Added the missing hyphen below to make it a proper list item
+    - docker pull nginxdemos/hello:plain-text
+    # Deploy the stack directly onto the host using the shared docker.sock
+    - docker compose -f ../../stacks/applications/hello-world/docker-compose.yml up -d
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