v1truv1us Default output: return only the result, blockers, and required evidence. Omit preambles, process narration, repeated context, confidence scores, and follow-up offers. Use at most five bullets unless a required artifact or schema needs more.
CI/CD and Automation
Overview
Pipelines enforce quality automatically: catch issues early (shift left), ship in small batches, and use feature flags for safe release. When CI fails on a branch, iterate with gh pr checks as the source of truth—not GitHub Actions list alone.
When to Use
- Designing or changing build/deploy pipelines
- Adding quality gates or automated checks
- Watching or fixing CI on the current branch or PR
Core principles
Shift left: lint/format pre-commit, typecheck before push, unit tests on push, integration tests on PR, security scans on main.
Faster is safer: automate deploys, make rollbacks trivial, auto-deploy staging on merge.
Feature flags: incomplete features, gradual rollout, kill switches, environment-specific behavior.
Quality gate order (fastest-failing first): lint → typecheck → unit tests → build → integration → security → staging deploy → smoke → production.
Pipeline design process
- List required checks and order fastest-failing-first with clear pass/fail criteria.
- Keep lint/typecheck under ~30s and unit tests under ~2 minutes where possible.
- Automate staging on merge; production with approval or policy.
- Track success rate and mean time to recovery; alert on blocked merges.
CI failure iteration
Use when checks are pending, failing, or you need to drive a branch to green.
gh pr view --json number,url,headRefName
gh pr checks --json name,bucket,state,workflow,link
gh pr checks --watch --fail-fast # when pending
gh run view <run-id> --log-failed # when GHA job failed
Workflow:
- Resolve the active PR and inspect the full check set.
- If already failed, diagnose the first actionable error (logs or check link).
- If pending, watch with fail-fast.
- Apply the smallest safe fix for one failure at a time.
- Push, re-run
gh pr checks, repeat until green.
Guardrails:
- One failure cause per fix when possible; no
--no-verify. - If failure is unrelated and fixed on main, merge main instead of bloating the PR.
- Retry flaky checks once and record flake evidence.
- Re-check after every push—the check set can change.
Output: current status, root error, fixes applied in order, PR URL when green.
Anti-Rationalization
| Excuse | Counter |
|---|---|
| "The pipeline can be fixed later" | Broken pipelines get bypassed. |
| "Full automation is too much work" | Manual deploy is slower and error-prone. |
| "Feature flags add complexity" | They prevent uncontrolled release risk. |
| "We don't need staging" | Staging catches environment-specific failures. |
| "The pipeline is fast enough" | Slow feedback discourages small commits. |
Verification
- Pipeline runs on every push and PR
- Fastest checks run first
- Deploy and rollback paths are automated and tested
- CI iteration uses
gh pr checksas authority