Invitation to Review the CI/CD Engineering Anti-Patterns

Over the last several years, I have been working on a book around a subject closely connected to my engineering work and research:

Continuous Integration, CI/CD, and Engineering Anti-Patterns
Why Continuous Integration and Delivery Fail and How to Engineer Better Outcomes

The book started from a simple observation. We often discuss CI/CD in terms of pipelines, automation and tools. Yet many problems we see in Continuous Integration begin well before the pipeline.

They can start with unclear engineering intent, architecture, requirement slicing, branching, test strategy, environments, ownership, security, organizational behavior, measurement, or how teams learn from recurring failures.

That became the central idea behind the book:

CI/CD should be understood as a connected engineering system, not only as a pipeline.

What the Book Covers

The current manuscript brings together 45 engineering anti-patterns across 10 engineering themes.

It establishes the broader engineering context and introduces PULSE, a system view of CI/CD through five dimensions:

• Purpose & Culture
• Underlying Engineering Foundation
• Lifecycle Flow
• System Assurance
• Evidence & Evolution

From there, the book examines individual anti-patterns, including:

• CI Without a North Star
• The Architecture-Blind Pipeline
• The Branching Maze
• The Accidental Test Pyramid
• The Flaky-Test Fog
• Coverage Theatre
• Infrastructure as an Exception
• Security and Safety Outside CI
• The SBOM Afterthought
• The Pipeline Without Telemetry
• AI as a Coding Add-On
• The Invisible Value Stream
• Automation Without a Test Architecture
• Testability as a Late Concern
• The Big-Bang Deployment

Each anti-pattern follows a common structure:

Recognize → Diagnose → Transform → Assess → Mature

The aim is to move from recognizing a recurring problem to making a practical change and checking whether it improved the outcome:

• What does the pattern look like in real engineering work?
• Why does it keep happening?
• What evidence should we inspect?
• What part of the engineering system needs to change?
• How do we know whether the change improved the outcome?

Why I Am Sharing an Early Review Manuscript

The full manuscript is substantial, and I am continuing a detailed line-by-line review. This shorter Early Review Manuscript gives reviewers a way to explore the thinking without reading the complete book.

It includes the book’s philosophy, the system model, the complete list of 45 anti-patterns, the chapter structure and a representative selection of anti-patterns in detail.

I am sharing it to learn from others. If you work in software engineering, architecture, CI/CD, DevOps, quality engineering, platform engineering, security, embedded systems, engineering leadership, academia or related areas, I would value your perspective.

Request Access to the Early Review Manuscript — select “Request access” if prompted.

What Feedback Would Help?

• Does treating CI/CD as an engineering system resonate with your experience?
• Are important anti-patterns or perspectives missing?
• Do any anti-patterns overlap or belong together?
• Is the Recognize → Diagnose → Transform → Assess → Mature structure useful?
• Is the technical depth appropriate for practitioners?
• Are the examples and terminology clear across engineering domains?
• What would make the book more useful when improving a real engineering system?

You do not need to review every page. Comments on one section or one anti-pattern would be valuable. Critical feedback is welcome, particularly while there is still time to improve the manuscript.

A Small Request

If, after reading the manuscript, you believe the book can contribute to the engineering community, I would also appreciate a short reflection or endorsement. A few honest lines about what you found useful, different, thought-provoking or practically relevant would be enough.

Share Your Review or Reflection

You are also welcome to join the WhatsApp community for discussion, shared engineering experiences and book updates.

Thank you to everyone who has challenged the ideas, reviewed sections and shared experiences that have shaped this work. There is still work to do, and I look forward to learning from a wider group of reviewers.

Anish Cheriyan, PhD