Configures and manages CI/CD pipelines, including setting up automated quality gates (lint, test, build), defining deployment strategies, and integrating test runners into version control workflows.
Say it in your own words; the assistant finds this recipe by itself. Examples:
Use this skill when initializing a new project's CI/CD infrastructure or modifying existing pipeline configurations. It is appropriate when you need to add automated checks like linting, type checking, or security audits to pull requests. Also use it when setting up deployment workflows, such as preview environments or production releases, and when debugging why a pipeline is failing.
Automate quality gates so that no change reaches production without passing tests, lint, type checking, and build. CI/CD is the enforcement mechanism for every other skill — it catches what humans and agents miss, and it does so consistently on every single change.
Shift Left: Catch problems as early in the pipeline as possible. A bug caught in linting costs minutes; the same bug caught in production costs hours. Move checks upstream — static analysis before tests, tests before staging, staging before production.
Faster is Safer: Smaller batches and more frequent releases reduce risk, not increase it. A deployment with 3 changes is easier to debug than one with 30. Frequent releases build confidence in the release process itself.
Every change goes through these gates before merge:
Pull Request Opened
│
▼
┌─────────────────┐
│ LINT CHECK │ eslint, prettier
│ ↓ pass │
│ TYPE CHECK │ tsc --noEmit
│ ↓ pass │
│ UNIT TESTS │ jest/vitest
│ ↓ pass │
│ BUILD │ npm run build
│ ↓ pass │
│ INTEGRATION │ API/DB tests
│ ↓ pass │
│ E2E (optional) │ Playwright/Cypress
│ ↓ pass │
│ SECURITY AUDIT │ npm audit
│ ↓ pass │
│ BUNDLE SIZE │ bundlesize check
└─────────────────┘
│
▼
Ready for review
No gate can be skipped. If lint fails, fix lint — don't disable the rule. If a test fails, fix the code — don't skip the test.
# .github/workflows/ci.yml
name: CI
on:
pull_request:
branches: [main]
push:
branches: [main]
jobs:
quality:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- uses: actions/setup-node@v4
with:
node-version: '22'
cache: 'npm'
- name: Install dependencies
run: npm ci
- name: Lint
run: npm run lint
- name: Type check
run: npx tsc --noEmit
- name: Test
run: npm test -- --coverage
- name: Build
run: npm run build
- name: Security audit
run: npm audit --audit-level=high
integration:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
services:
postgres:
image: postgres:16
env:
POSTGRES_DB: testdb
POSTGRES_USER: ci_user
POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${{ secrets.CI_DB_PASSWORD }}
ports:
- 5432:5432
options: >-
--health-cmd pg_isready
--health-interval 10s
--health-timeout 5s
--health-retries 5
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- uses: actions/setup-node@v4
with:
node-version: '22'
cache: 'npm'
- run: npm ci
- name: Run migrations
run: npx prisma migrate deploy
env:
DATABASE_URL: postgresql://ci_user:${{ secrets.CI_DB_PASSWORD }}@localhost:5432/testdb
- name: Integration tests
run: npm run test:integration
env:
DATABASE_URL: postgresql://ci_user:${{ secrets.CI_DB_PASSWORD }}@localhost:5432/testdb
Note: Even for CI-only test databases, use GitHub Secrets for credentials rather than hardcoding values. This builds good habits and prevents accidental reuse of test credentials in other contexts.
e2e:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- uses: actions/setup-node@v4
with:
node-version: '22'
cache: 'npm'
- run: npm ci
- name: Install Playwright
run: npx playwright install --with-deps chromium
- name: Build
run: npm run build
- name: Run E2E tests
run: npx playwright test
- uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
if: failure()
with:
name: playwright-report
path: playwright-report/
The power of CI with AI agents is the feedback loop. When CI fails:
CI fails
│
▼
Copy the failure output
│
▼
Feed it to the agent:
"The CI pipeline failed with this error:
[paste specific error]
Fix the issue and verify locally before pushing again."
│
▼
Agent fixes → pushes → CI runs again
Key patterns:
Lint failure → Agent runs `npm run lint --fix` and commits
Type error → Agent reads the error location and fixes the type
Test failure → Agent follows debugging-and-error-recovery skill
Build error → Agent checks config and dependencies
Every PR gets a preview deployment for manual testing:
# Deploy preview on PR (Vercel/Netlify/etc.)
deploy-preview:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
if: github.event_name == 'pull_request'
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- name: Deploy preview
run: npx vercel --token=${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
Feature flags decouple deployment from release. Deploy incomplete or risky features behind flags so you can:
// Simple feature flag pattern
if (featureFlags.isEnabled('new-checkout-flow', { userId })) {
return renderNewCheckout();
}
return renderLegacyCheckout();
Flag lifecycle: Create → Enable for testing → Canary → Full rollout → Remove the flag and dead code. Flags that live forever become technical debt — set a cleanup date when you create them.
PR merged to main
│
▼
Staging deployment (auto)
│ Manual verification
▼
Production deployment (manual trigger or auto after staging)
│
▼
Monitor for errors (15-minute window)
│
├── Errors detected → Rollback
└── Clean → Done
Every deployment should be reversible:
# Manual rollback workflow
name: Rollback
on:
workflow_dispatch:
inputs:
version:
description: 'Version to rollback to'
required: true
jobs:
rollback:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Rollback deployment
run: |
# Deploy the specified previous version
npx vercel rollback ${{ inputs.version }}
.env.example → Committed (template for developers)
.env → NOT committed (local development)
.env.test → Committed (test environment, no real secrets)
CI secrets → Stored in GitHub Secrets / vault
Production secrets → Stored in deployment platform / vault
CI should never have production secrets. Use separate secrets for CI testing.
# .github/dependabot.yml
version: 2
updates:
- package-ecosystem: npm
directory: /
schedule:
interval: weekly
open-pull-requests-limit: 5
Designate someone responsible for keeping CI green. When the build breaks, the Build Cop's job is to fix or revert — not the person whose change caused the break. This prevents broken builds from accumulating while everyone assumes someone else will fix it.
When the pipeline exceeds 10 minutes, apply these strategies in order of impact:
Slow CI pipeline?
├── Cache dependencies
│ └── Use actions/cache or setup-node cache option for node_modules
├── Run jobs in parallel
│ └── Split lint, typecheck, test, build into separate parallel jobs
├── Only run what changed
│ └── Use path filters to skip unrelated jobs (e.g., skip e2e for docs-only PRs)
├── Use matrix builds
│ └── Shard test suites across multiple runners
├── Optimize the test suite
│ └── Remove slow tests from the critical path, run them on a schedule instead
└── Use larger runners
└── GitHub-hosted larger runners or self-hosted for CPU-heavy builds
Example: caching and parallelism
jobs:
lint:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- uses: actions/setup-node@v4
with: { node-version: '22', cache: 'npm' }
- run: npm ci
- run: npm run lint
typecheck:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- uses: actions/setup-node@v4
with: { node-version: '22', cache: 'npm' }
- run: npm ci
- run: npx tsc --noEmit
test:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- uses: actions/setup-node@v4
with: { node-version: '22', cache: 'npm' }
- run: npm ci
- run: npm test -- --coverage
| Rationalization | Reality |
|---|---|
| "CI is too slow" | Optimize the pipeline (see CI Optimization below), don't skip it. A 5-minute pipeline prevents hours of debugging. |
| "This change is trivial, skip CI" | Trivial changes break builds. CI is fast for trivial changes anyway. |
| "The test is flaky, just re-run" | Flaky tests mask real bugs and waste everyone's time. Fix the flakiness. |
| "We'll add CI later" | Projects without CI accumulate broken states. Set it up on day one. |
| "Manual testing is enough" | Manual testing doesn't scale and isn't repeatable. Automate what you can. |
After setting up or modifying CI:
LICENSESKILL.mdVendored from addyosmani/agent-skills, commit aeac41d4d005, path skills/ci-cd-and-automation, licence MIT. The upstream licence file ships inside the skill.