CI/CD and Automation Skill

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 checks as authority

Agent Skills: CI/CD and Automation

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